First Do No Harm
by Haleine Delail
Summary: Martha wakes and finds that her world is not as it should be. Jack and Tom are debilitated, her family thinks she's mad and when she finds the Doctor, it causes her to lose all hope of working out the problem. What's happened and why will no one listen?
1. Chapter 1

ONE

Martha Jones' eyes opened upon a white and silver, sterile world. Shiny tails of light formed tendrils upon the ceiling and something cold pressed against the back of her hand. She tried to look, but she was unable to move.

"Oh God," she whispered. The last thing she remembered was being trapped in a small chamber inside Torchwood with citizens of the planet Kaf Celape. They had managed to convince the Torchwood team that they were a benevolent race, but Martha had suspected the worst when one of them grabbed her around the neck and gagged her, then began dragging her down into Torchwood's lower region.

And now she was in an altogether different place, surrounded not by brown brick, but by steel and tile, instruments and screens. She felt sure she had been knocked pretty well unconscious because she was having trouble keeping her eyes open, and her general grogginess could bring down a planet. But the question was, which planet was she on? Had they taken her back to Kaf Celape or was she still on Earth? How would she get in touch with Jack and the others?

Slowly, the swirling above dissipated into jagged black spots against a white background. A grid around them came into focus. Martha was finally able to move her hand into her line of vision. She had three needles stuck in the veins of her right hand, all attached to IVs. She looked up and saw that one of the IVs was a simple glucose drip. The others, she could not identify.

Upon looking round, she realised she was in a hospital. It looked normal enough – Styrofoam acoustic ceiling tiles, IV drips, metal railings on the side of her bed, but she was still sceptical. She needed to assess where she was, what had happened to her...

And then the mad beeping began. Some kind of heart or brainwave monitor had come to life. Well, blimey, her awakening was attracting attention.

"Doctor, she's awake! Doctor! Did you hear me?" she heard a familiar voice yell. It was Jack's voice! She fell back on the bed with relief – somehow, she'd been found and rescued. Jack and – dare she believe it? – the Doctor were here to greet her awakening.

She closed her eyes and smiled. She heard rapid footsteps getting closer. She opened her eyes, and Jack's face appeared above her. "Oh, thank God," he sighed, and smiled. "Doctor, hurry!"

Another face appeared on the other side of her. Another familiar face – handsome, unshaven with dark hair and a worried expression.

She did a double take. She blinked several times, and groaned the word, "Tom?"

Tom blinked back and looked at Jack quizzically. "Er, yes, my name is Tom. Martha, how are you feeling?"

She grabbed on to each of the men and sat up. "I'm... oh, I'm knackered," she said. "But so glad to see you!" She threw her arms around Tom's neck.

She turned. "Jack, how did you find me?"

The two men looked at each other strangely. In lieu of an answer, Jack said, "Um, Martha, I think maybe you should take a little more time..."

"No no, I'm fine," she insisted, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Jack stepped back away from her, watching with fascination. She pulled the IV needles out of her hand and threw them aside. When she stood, she swooned a bit, but Jack caught her and helped her sit down on the bed.

"Martha, you still need to rest," Tom said, coming round to kneel in front of her. He shined a light in her eyes, and she tried to push him away.

"Tom, what are you doing?"

He was exasperated. "Martha, please sit still, I need to check your pupils. You are not fit to be up on your feet and kicking yet, so please stay put."

She rolled her eyes and sighed. She allowed Tom to check her pupils, and smiled at him lovingly as he did so. Her initial shock at not seeing the Doctor was abated by her fiancé's clear desire to check on her well-being.

Tom shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat. "Well, everything seems to be fine. But I mean it – you stay in bed. I'll get a nurse to call your family." With that, Tom left the room unceremoniously.

Jack sat down in a chair across the room and smiled at her. "Good to see you, Martha Jones."

"What the hell was that?" she asked him, pointing to the door where Tom had just exited.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, he was so... _businesslike_ with me. So professional, like I'm his patient or something!"

"Um, you _are_ his patient."

"Okay. But I'm more than that." She looked at her left hand. "Where's my ring?"

"Of course, but he does have other patients to attend to."

She sighed. She stared at him. Something was wrong. Jack was dressed in a light blue and white checked button-up shirt, tucked into a pair of jeans. On his feet, he wore Nike trainers. "Jack, what are you wearing?"

He smiled again and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Martha, I'm sure it's just a by-product of what's happened to you, but my name is not Jack."

She laughed. "Don't be ridiculous. What are you talking about?"

"I'm John," he said, leaning forward to shake her hand. "It's nice to meet you."

She laughed again. "Oh you _are _kidding. Now _you're _John? Okay. Who am I then?" She crossed her arms defensively and waited for a response with amusement.

"You're Martha Jones," he said, leaning back once again. "I work with Dr. Ellis sometimes in cases like this – I'm here to help you."

"Who's Dr. Ellis?" she wanted to know.

_John_ laughed. "You called him Tom."

"No way," Martha protested. "His name is Milligan. Tom Milligan – I know that much."

John was concerned now. He leaned forward once again. "Martha, I think some damage has been done in the time you've been away from us. You are convinced of certain things, almost like you've got a wire crossed somewhere, but don't worry. Part of my job is to help you sort through that."

She blinked exaggeratedly at him. "What the _hell_ are you on about?"

"Martha," he said gently. "You've been in a coma for three years. Something similar happened to me a few years back, and since then, I've been working with Dr. Ellis to help re-assimilate long-term coma patients."

She went cold. Something was seriously wrong. The Kaf Celape had done something to Jack _and _to Tom...

She stood up. "Okay Jack, listen to me," she said. She took both of his hands. "We are going to get out of this. We'll work out what's happened and everything will be back to normal. We just have to find the Doctor. He has my mobile – I know how to get hold of him, we just have to get to a phone."

The man sitting across from her, whatever his name was, he helped her sit back down again. "You're absolutely right – with the help of the doctor, we will sort it out. Now, please sleep. We will wake you when your family arrives."

She looked at him with something resembling fear. She allowed him to push her into a lying position and to pull blankets up over her legs and stomach. Whatever was going on, Jack either was hypnotised or he wasn't talking. She always thought she could trust him, and maybe she could... but that meant that he was trying to keep her quiet, keep something under wraps.

_All right, so be it. I will wait for his cue._


	2. Chapter 2

TWO

When she woke again, it was to another familiar voice calling her name. She opened her eyes and there was her mother's tear-streaked face, growing more and more emotional as Martha showed advancing signs of life.

"Oh Martha!" her mother exclaimed. "I can't believe we've got you back! You're back!" Francine hugged her daughter hard, and cried.

From behind her and on the sides, she felt more hugging, and heard more sobbing. She heard her father whimpering at her back, she heard Tish say "We've missed you so much," and Leo appeared behind Francine, also tear-streaked, and he stroked Martha's hand. "Welcome back," he choked out.

When her family disengaged from her, they were all crying and staring at her. She sat back against her pillow and smiled and just said, "Hi guys." But she had not forgotten the utter weirdness that had ensued before.

"How do you feel, darling?" her father asked.

"All right," she said. "A bit confused."

"Well, that's to be expected," her mum told her. "Three years is a long time."

Martha looked at her mother questioningly. _Oh, not you as well!_

"Listen," Martha said to her family. "I think something's wrong."

"What? What is it, love?" her dad asked, sitting far forward in his chair.

"No, no, it's not like that," she assured him. "It's just... things are weird. Tom is acting strange, like he doesn't know me, and Jack was here, but then he claimed he wasn't Jack. He said his name was John, and that he works with coma patients."

The Jones family all looked at each other. Leo said quietly, "Dr. Ellis said there could be some neurological damage." Tish nodded sadly.

"Martha, darling," Francine said, taking her hand. "I want you to let Dr. Ellis and John do everything they can for you. It's only if you let them in that you can get better, okay?"

"Mum, please don't speak to me like a child. I know what I know, and everything is wrong here. I just need to get to a phone – if we can find the Doctor, he will sort it out!"

"She wants the doctor," Tish said.

"Okay, honey," her mother said, nodding. "We'll find him."

The Jones family left Martha's room hugging each other and crying even more. A minute later, Tom appeared in the doorway and said, "Your family said you were asking for me."

She sighed and threw her head back on the pillow in frustration. "Never mind."

* * *

"Okay, Martha, I'd like you to tell me the last thing you remember." Her new friend _John_ poised a pencil above a yellow legal pad. Today he was dressed in a red and green plaid shirt with tan trousers and loafers. This alone was enough to cause Martha to slip back into a coma.

They were sitting in a small room, one entire wall of which was windowed. Martha gazed out upon the city – London looked surprisingly normal. She wasn't sure what she expected to see. She and John each occupied a red armchair, and there was a large fern in the corner. Behind Martha, there was a table upon which rested a plug-in teapot, some Styrofoam cups and a plate of biscuits.

She had her arms crossed defensively, and asked him, "Why don't you tell me the last thing _you _remember?"

He laughed. "Okay, fair enough," he said, setting his paper and pencil aside. "I suppose that's not too much to ask – for me to tell you my story in exchange for yours. I met this guy in college, back in Chicago, his name was Chris. He was from over on this side of the pond – somewhere up north, I think. Manchester or Blackpool maybe.

"Anyway, after we graduated, he wanted to go off travelling – see the world and whatnot, so I went with him. We started in Australia and went westward. We wound up back here in London at the end and decided to get a flat together here. We were in a bank trying to get a loan, when there was a robbery. Well, I acted the hero and tried to help, and got myself shot for my trouble."

He pulled up his shirt and revealed two bullet scars on the right side of his chest.

"My lungs filled with blood and my brain went without oxygen for too long and I slipped into a coma. I was out of commission for two years, and then, much like you, I just woke up one day. I had to be brought up to date (starting with the fact that Chris had totally _abandoned me _at the scene, but I'm not bitter), I had to re-assimilate, find my friends again, re-establish my relationship with my family – everything. They had someone there to help me do all of that, and I decided, once I got on my feet, that I would become _that person_, who helps people find their bearings when they wake from a coma. So here I am."

"A bank robbery?" she asked. "That's your story?"

"That's my story," he told her. "I think it's a pretty spectacular story, myself, but I can see you're not impressed."

"Was the bank called The Game Station?"

"Beg pardon?"

She stared at him. "Whatever."

"Quid pro quo, Martha," he said to her. "Ever seen _Silence of the Lambs_? I showed you mine."

"Okay, the last thing I remember is the Kef Celape. They had infiltrated Torchwood and then they kidnapped me and took me to the basement. I don't know what happened after that – I blacked out and woke up here."

John wrote down what she said. "Mmm," he said. "That's the last thing you remember _before _going into the coma?"

"Yes," she said. She leaned forward and gestured emphatically with frustrated passion. "You were there, Jack! You're the one who let them in! You're the one who convinced us that they were okay! You were the one who sent me down to the ground floor to find out what that noise was, and that's how I got attacked!"

His face showed concern. "You blame me for something?"

"No, I don't blame you," she said. "I'm just trying to get you to understand. This is all wrong, Jack! This world, whatever it is, wherever we are, it's not right! Have you ever heard of a chameleon arch?"

"Okay, okay," he said, putting his hands up in a cease-fire gesture. "Let's just start over."

She gave up again and sat back in her chair once more. Her arms instinctively crossed in front of her and her face steeled angrily.

"One day, three years ago, you were in a summer internship at Royal Hope Hospital," he told her slowly.

"Yes! Yes!" she cried out, holding her arms in the air jubilantly. "Finally, something that makes sense!"

"Just listen. It was a very rainy day, so wet that people said it was like the rain was coming _up_ from the streets. There was a bomb threat – do you remember the military cordoning off the hospital trying to root out a terrorist?"

_No, I remember giant talking rhinos traipsing through with their species scanners looking for a plasmavore called Florence. _But she said, "Yes."

"Good. Well, they missed one of the dynamite rigs, and it exploded right underneath you. You are lucky to have all your limbs intact! You received a massive head injury which put you in a coma for three years, two months and four days."

"Okay." Martha agreed. She wasn't going to argue.

"Your memory of Khef Selapi is curious because that happened while you were still under."

"Khef Selapi? Kef Celape? Oh, I get it."

"Yeah, that's a creepy story. He was a nurse at the Torchwood Institute, where you were a patient for most of the time you were in the coma. It's a private hospital – your parents wanted the best for you. Selapi was on the night shift and you were on his rounds, and he... well, he sort of fell in love with you during his tenure. About a week ago, you went missing, and so did he. The police found him in a basement room at Torchwood three hours later, giving you non-sanctioned intravenous medicines to try to revive you. He said he'd tried to convince your attending physicians that you could be awakened with a certain cocktail, and he felt that once they did that, that he could be with you. But they wouldn't listen, so he tried it himself. He had to be restrained, and your family had you moved away from Torchwood and brought here, and put in the care of Dr. Ellis."

"And you?"

"Well, the funny thing was, the cocktail he gave you might have worked, because once you were moved, your brain started to show activity. That's when they call me – when it looks like a patient might come around soon. So I sat with you for a few hours a day talking to you, and finally... here you are!"

She was, in spite of herself, moved. "Thanks."

"In the meantime, just for your peace of mind, Khef Selapi has been arrested and there are numerous witnesses to testify against him, so you don't have to worry about him. He'll be going away for a long time."

"Okay, so what's next?" she wanted to know.

"Well, in a day or two, you'll get to go home with your family, and then you and I will meet up a couple times a week after that until we both feel we're ready to stop seeing each other. How does that sound?"

Her mind was in a spin. John's stories had much more to do with reality than any of the versions she could impart – she was tempted to believe him, but she simply could not. That would mean that her adventure with the Judoon was simply a skewed vision brought on by neurological damage, and that all of the time in between – with the Doctor, with UNIT, with Torchwood – was a lie as well. Whatever was happening to her, she was more convinced than ever, was happening also to Jack, except that he seemed to be fully absorbed in it. She decided that the easiest, safest and most prudent course of action was to do as he said. She would go home with her family and stay in touch, on a weekly basis, with Jack. That way, she could at least guarantee to be anchored in some way to her _real _life, and she could keep track of Jack while she worked out a way to get in touch with the Doctor.

And so, she answered, "That sounds fine."


	3. Chapter 3

THREE

She spent her first three weeks at home being waited-on and fussed-over, and she hadn't been allowed to do anything on her own except use the toilet. No one left her alone long enough to think, and certainly not long enough to try to contact an intergalactic traveller who could be taking a holiday at the Big Bang for all she knew. But it was all right for now – she told herself she was lying in stasis, watching, gathering intel. She was seeing John on Mondays and Thursdays, sometimes at their home, sometimes at the hospital, sometimes elsewhere.

Therefore, it was three weeks before it occurred to Martha that in her "real" life, she had already passed through medical school and had been working as a field doctor. Whereas here, in the world that thought she'd been in a coma for three years, she was still a student. John had brought the realisation into her mind on their sixth visit after she'd left the hospital. This particular meeting took place in a coffee shop near her family's home. They decided to sit inside, and not on the terrace, because the early July heat was oppressive – uncharacteristically so.

"Have you thought about what you'd like to do now?" he asked. "I mean, with your life."

"Well, I suppose I'd like to carry on being a doctor," she said.

He sipped his coffee and seemed to be thinking about that. "I suppose you could be ready to go back to classes in September," he said. "You'll have to get Dr. Ellis' clearance before you go – I mean, he'll have to sign off that you're mentally and physically ready, but barring that, I don't see what should stop you."

Dr. Ellis. Oh, that was another thing that was on her mind quite a lot. Dr. Ellis. In _her _life, there was no Dr. Ellis – there was Tom Milligan. They shared a flat, they were making wedding plans, they talked on the phone every night while he toiled in Africa with the smallpox and the malaria, saccharinely counting the days until he returned to England and they could be together. Clearly, it was the same man, the man she loved – same voice, same mannerisms, same profession – but Dr. Ellis wanted only to have contact with her as a patient. Apparently, that's all he knew. With all that she had lost in this world, the denial of her memories, the weirdness of the Jack/John phenomenon, the loss of Tom was what she felt most acutely.

She swallowed. "Okay, what would I have to do to get ready?"

"I'm not sure," he told her. "But this is good! Now we have a goal! We're trying to get you ready to return to medical school before the fall semester begins. Good to have something to focus on."

"Yeah, good," she said, trying to seem excited. The thought of going through med school _again_ did not excite her, but she figured she needed to go through the motions and make it look as though she was trying to carry on and put her life back together.

That night, she rose from bed when she was sure everyone was asleep. She crept down to the kitchen and took the cordless phone from the cradle. She crunched down in the farthest corner of the living room and dialled the number. She knew it wasn't fool-proof, because the last time she had tried it, the Doctor had been "out of range," but eventually the call had gone through and they had found each other.

"Please let this work," she whispered as she pressed _send_.

There was a bit of silence, and then a mechanical female voice came over, saying, "The number you have called is not recognised. Please verify that you have the correct number and try again."

She looked at the phone with disdain. She felt an irrational frustration aimed at the voice, as though it were _her _fault that the number was wrong or unrecognised or whatever.

She tried again. "The number you have called is not recognised. Please verify that you have the correct number and try again."

"Shit!" she spat in the dark.

* * *

"What's happening?" Martha asked. She came down the stairs on a Saturday morning approximately six weeks after her release from hospital to find an unusual amount of chaos in her parents' home.

As was now her ritual, she had awakened, brushed her teeth, showered, put on makeup and some manner of clothing, and then sat on her bed trying to reach the Doctor. She tried twice every morning, and each time, the number came back unrecognised. After that, she prayed. She didn't know to whom, but some part of her believed that the TARDIS would eventually home in on her distress signal and lead the Doctor back to her.

"Did we forget to tell you?" her mum asked, scooping up chunks of cantaloupe with two hands and depositing them in a bowl. "It's a barbecue."

Martha chuckled. "It's a barbecue. And you've invited an army?"

Francine's eyes scanned the counters piled with chicken breasts and hamburger, bowls of chopped fruit and crisps. And there were three different kinds of pie. "No, just some neighbours. And John. And Dr. Ellis. We thought it might be nice, you know, for him to see you in your natural environment."

"My natural environment?" Martha asked. "What am I, an emu on the Discovery Channel?"

Francine put her knife down and inhaled dramatically. "Martha, it's important. Dr. Ellis doesn't think you're going to be ready in time to start classes again. He thinks you have not assimilated. He thinks you're delusional," she explained, shakily. "He says... he says you've told John some things..."

Martha sighed. Of course she had known that whatever was said between her and John would eventually be reported back to the attending physician, since John had no training as a psychiatrist, just a rudimentary course the hospital offered to those in his position. But she had somehow thought that her previous relationship with Jack would ensure his confidentiality. She kept forgetting that _that _world was gone for now – this world was different, and ironically, made more sense than the one she had been torn from.

One day, John had broken down and directly asked her why she kept calling him Jack. She took a chance and explained that she believed she had previously known him as Captain Jack Harkness, a Time Agent from the fifty-second century who had been killed and revived by a vortex-wielding friend which ensured his immortality, then he had accidentally transported himself to the mid-nineteenth century, then lived all the way up to 2007 where he had caught up with her and a mutual friend in Cardiff. She had told him in the most even-keel voice she could muster, and she had left out the part about the end of the universe, the Master, Torchwood as an underground alien-fighting conglomerate of which Jack Harkness is the leader, and of course, she had left out all information concerning the Doctor. She wanted desperately to talk to John about the Doctor, but she realised that she could not find the words. The Doctor was a very difficult man to explain to someone who had no previous knowledge of him.

As she expected, John did not react aversely to her explanation of Captain Jack Harkness – he looked at her with the same slight smile and even face as always. This rather disturbed her for some reason.

"Oh, the Time Agent stuff?" Martha asked.

Her mum nodded sadly.

"I guess it must have been a dream I had while I was under," she said. "You know – three years in a coma. It's like a whole universe formed inside my head."

"Well," Francine sniffed. "Dr. Ellis seems to think that you _believe _all that. We're all concerned, honey."

Martha sighed heavily. She felt like a mental patient – which, she supposed, was sort of what she was.

"So what do I need to do?" she asked her mum. In spite of it all, she figured the best thing for her was to get back to school, and she couldn't do that without Tom's say-so.

Francine wiped her hands on a towel and came around the counter and took her daughter's cheeks gently in her hands. "Just act natural, Martha. Be yourself, be your easy, fun, intelligent self. Let him see how _good_ you are. If you don't want to be seen as a science experiment, then let him see you outside the lab, as it were."

"Okay," she agreed. "Natural. Gotcha."

Martha went back upstairs to change out of her sweats and tank top. She chose a pair of black shorts and a purple tee shirt from her trip to São Paolo a few years back. She slipped a headband into her hair and a pair of flip-flops on her feet and headed back downstairs. Before she closed the door on her bedroom, she glanced at the phone again. She let out a frustrated little "ugh," and then pulled the door shut.

By the time she got back downstairs, Tish and Leo had both arrived. Tish and her mother were separating large chunks of ground beef and pressing them into patties. Leo was standing in the kitchen chattering about his new job with a beer in his hand, and picking at the food while Francine and Tish swatted his hands away. Her dad was outside having his usual fistfight with the barbecue, along with a neighbour, Mr. Marcus.

"Mr. Marcus is here," Martha exclaimed. "Haven't seen him in..."

"Three years?" Leo asked. Martha punched him in the arm.

"Where's Mrs. Marcus? Is she coming?" asked Martha.

They were all a bit quiet for a moment, and then Francine said, "Martha, she passed away last year. Cancer took her."

Martha's face crinkled. "Oh, no. Ugh, that's awful."

It was the first of this kind of encounter. Three years' absence meant the world had changed, and that didn't just mean a new Prime Minister or a television show cancelled – it meant that the ebb and flow of private lives were in flux. It meant that people were born and died while she was "gone" and that she had, really and truly, missed something. So now, in addition to her memories being dismissed as fantasies, she had to contend with the prospect of losing people she cared about, before she even knew it.

A voice rang out, disturbing Martha somewhat from her reverie. "Francine?" it said. "I wanted to tell you – Corbin and I are vegetarian, so don't plan on a burger for us, all right, dear? And I don't eat dairy, so it'll just be fruit for me – no potato salad or pudding."

"All right," her mother called out, clearly being fake-nice.

"Martha," the voice said, with a low, weepy quality. Martha turned her head toward the back door, and there stood Mrs. Hambly, the haughty neighbour from the corner flat who had lived there since Martha was a child. Martha walked toward her. "So nice to see you again, sweetheart. How are you feeling?"

Martha kissed Mrs. Hambly's cheek, and said, "Like the world's passed me by, thanks."

"Well, if there's anything that Corbin or I can do for you, don't hesitate to ask, all right? Ta!" And with that, the annoying woman was out the door again.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Francine snapped, "Can't stand that woman." Martha and Tish and Leo all laughed, having remembered the last umpteen times an exchange similar to this had taken place, to which Francine responded "Can't stand that woman."

Martha was reassured to learn that with all the changes, there was plenty that had stayed the same.

And then, the phone rang. Francine answered, and the exchange was exceedingly short. When she hung up, she said, "Martha, would you go to the door? She's bringing two different kinds of potato salad – one of them is non-dairy for Mrs. Hambly – and she won't have a free hand to ring the bell when she gets here."

"Er, okay," Martha said. "Who is she?"

"Just the new neighbour," Francine told her. "She bought the Ryans' house next door, and we're in book club together."

"The Ryans moved? Blimey, what else do I need to know?"

Martha went to the front of the house and peeked out. What she saw nearly took her breath away.


	4. Chapter 4

FOUR

The new neighbour was crossing in front of the Jones house, each arm laden with a giant bowl. She was around forty, wearing a grey and pink knit sailor's blouse which was cut quite low, and, Martha guessed a Miracle Bra pushed her cleavage up unnaturally. She wore trendy brownish-blue jeans with black platform sandals and her thick red hair was swept up into a large cascading pile on the top of her head.

Martha nearly hyperventilated, she couldn't catch her breath. As with John, the style of dress was totally out-of-character, but there was no mistaking – she had to be right. The new neighbour was Donna Noble!

This represented the first thread of hope she'd had since waking six weeks ago. Weeks of calling for the Doctor, months of spending time with someone who was _not _Jack Harkness and another person who was _not_ Tom Milligan, had pressed her into a strange place of loneliness. Hope had seemed scarce, but now a familiar face seemed like a lifeline. Donna was here to explain it all, to put her back in the loop with the Doctor!

Martha yanked open the door just as the neighbour was reaching the top of the stairs.

"Martha?" she asked. "Is it you, Martha?"

"Yes!" Martha cried out, unbelievably relieved to see her.

"Oh, blimey, let me get a look at you!" the red-haired woman cried out. She set the bowls on a nearby credenza and grabbed Martha tightly by the shoulders. She looked Martha up and down, and then let out a little squeal of delight, before pulling Martha in for a big hug. Martha nearly cried with relief as she returned the hug.

When they finally let go, Martha said, "I'm so glad to see you!"

"I'm glad to see you too! Look at you, you're gorgeous!"

"You too!"

"Oh, where are my manners? I'm Catherine, I live next door. I've been spending some time with your mum and she's told me all about you. I was so thrilled to hear you'd come home and I've been dying to meet you, but I didn't want to crowd you – figured you had plenty of _life _to catch up on after three years."

Catherine? Martha was crestfallen. _Of course. Why would I think it would be as easy as that?_

"Yes, well," Martha stammered. "Can I help you with your bowls?"

"Lovely," Catherine answered. Each grabbed a bowl of potato salad and headed for the kitchen.

Uneasily, Martha watched Catherine greet Tish and Leo, kiss her mother on the cheek and then head outside to say hello to everyone else. She shook hands with all the neighbours, then accepted a glass of wine from Mrs. Hambly who happened to be sitting near the bottle. She laughed and smiled, joked loudly, brought her warmth to the party. It was uncanny – this _was _Donna Noble, right down to the little mole on her chin. Martha found herself following Catherine outside mindlessly, slack-jawed like a stalker. Part of her was bitterly disappointed that the ginger next-door neighbour did not present a link to her old life, and part of her was flogging herself for getting her hopes up. If John and Dr. Ellis weren't real, what would make her think Catherine was?

And yet another part of her was more convinced than ever that this was a trick or a trap or an alterna-world of some kind... that she wasn't just dreaming or crazy or delusional. It couldn't be a coincidence that so many people in this life looked _exactly_ like people from her real life. It had to be hypnosis or a perception alteration or retcon or... at this point she wouldn't rule out a magic spell.

"Martha, what's wrong?" her mother asked. "You're staring."

Snapping to, Martha mused, "I'm sorry if I'm being rude. It's just that I'm sure I've seen Catherine somewhere before."

"In one of your dreams, maybe?" Francine asked, smoothing one side of Martha's hair behind her ear.

Martha smiled tiredly. She was already exhausted and the party had barely started. Her mother added, "Well, if you want Dr. Ellis to give you the go-ahead, I would keep that to yourself. They need to know that you know the difference between your dreams and reality."

"I understand," Martha answered soberly. She resolved to try and speak to Catherine alone, first chance she got.

Guests seemed to arrive in droves, neighbours, friends, names she'd heard from her parents' offices, mates of Leo and Tish. Some of them she recognised, some of them she didn't. Of course Dr. Ellis was numbered among the revellers, as was John. The various neighbours were all glad to see her up and about, and those whom she was meeting for the first time had "heard so much about her," and were pleased to know that she was all right. After an hour, Martha's cheeks hurt from smiling, and she was ridiculously tired of saying 'thank you'. She grabbed a lemonade and stood on the edge of the garden, she hoped, outside the fray.

"Are you tired of the niceties yet?" she heard from the left.

"Tom... er, Dr. Ellis, hi," she gasped. "Yeah. Tired."

"It's all right," he smiled. "You can call me Tom today – it's a party."

"Oh, I don't think that's such a good idea," Martha said. She knew it would only make her pine further, that the familiarity would remind her of the longing for their normal life together, even more than now. More importantly for the moment, it would make her forget the formalities that were necessary between Martha the patient and Tom the doctor. She couldn't step over that line if she wanted to survive here

"As you like," Tom said. "You seem a bit uncomfortable."

"I'm coping," she said, nodding unnaturally. "Lots of new faces, some old ones... lots of changes."

"Ah, it's to be expected," he told her. "It must be like a whole new world for you."

She scoffed. "You have no idea."

He looked at her closely, adjusting his eyes. She risked a closer look at him as well, and it made her positively ache.

And then she was mercifully interrupted. "Martha?"

It was Catherine, tapping on her shoulder. "Oh, er, hi, Don... Catherine."

_Damn it! I'm going to have to learn these names!_

"Sorry to interrupt, but your mum said I should ask for your help cutting the pies," Catherine told her.

"Er, oh yes," Martha stammered. "Quite right. Er, Dr. Tom, er, Ellis... Dr. Tom Ellis, have you met Catherine?"

Tom looked at her quizzically in response to her sudden anxiety. She had realised that worlds were colliding. If she wanted Dr. Ellis to think she was fit to move on with her life, then she needed to keep her facts straight. She couldn't stare at Catherine, couldn't be caught calling her Donna, couldn't allow him to think that she had any problems separating realities. Of course, that pressure made it all the harder a task.

Catherine told her, "Yes, we met a little while ago, your mum introduced us."

"Shall we go tackle those pies?" Martha asked.

"Yeah," Catherine answered, taking Martha by the arm.

When they reached the kitchen, Catherine asked, "Are you okay, Martha?"

Martha saw an opportunity. She picked up a knife and plunged it into a cherry pie. "Erm, no. I'm really not. I'm feeling loss. Like something's been taken from me."

Catherine looked at her sympathetically as she plunged a different knife into a banana cream pie. "Of course – an event like this is bound to make you feel like you missed something. People die, people move, and other people move into their houses." She laughed a bit at herself.

Martha turned and looked at her squarely. "It's like a different life." Martha gulped hard, and then took a leap. _"I wish I could go back in time. Do you see?"_

Catherine sighed. "Yes, I see."

_"Need to get things sorted out. I can do that with the Doctor's help."_ She said those last four words slowly, carefully, poignantly. _"The Doctor's help, and your help."_

Catherine seemed nonplussed, and yet a glimmer of something shone in her eyes. "Oh, Martha," she said. "I don't know if I can help you." She was looking at Martha now with caution, as though she were erecting a wall between them.

"Please, _Catherine,_ I need your help. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"

"I do, Martha, but there are channels you have to go through, protocols to follow. I don't have the answers," Catherine insisted, both hands up in a defensive gesture. "I can't just snap my fingers and fix it – you were right before, you need the doctor's help."

Martha's heart sped up at those words. Could it be? Could it be?


	5. Chapter 5

FIVE

"Ladies!" John said, striding in through the back door. "How are things going in here?"

Martha broke her gaze on Catherine and looked uneasily at John. "Erm, we were just talking," she told him, going back to cutting pies.

"Yes, erm," Catherine said, just as uneasily as Martha. "Martha was asking for my advice. It seems her mum must have told her that I'm a secretary in the med school's admissions office at the university – she was just, you know, picking my brain. That's all."

"I see," John said. "Any advice?"

"I told her the truth: she needs the doctor."

"Fair enough," John said.

In an awkward silence, Catherine, Martha and John scooped pie onto small plates. Catherine was the first to take one outside to be claimed by a party-goer.

"Everything okay, Martha?" asked John. "I mean, what was that? You weren't asking her to pull strings for you at the university, were you?"

"No," Martha insisted semi-angrily. "I wasn't. It seems I'm just... confused as always."

"Good, because I was planning on recommending to Dr. Ellis that you're fine to begin classes soon," he said. "But if there are new issues, Martha, we need to address them."

She slammed the knife down on the counter. She looked at him starkly, at the end of this particular rope. "I don't want to address them, John. I just want to deliver pie, okay?"

"Sure. Whatever you want."

* * *

Martha utterly ceased discussing her "dreams" with John, and changed the subject if he asked. She avoided Catherine and she only saw Dr. Ellis when necessary. Six more weeks passed, and this life was just getting harder and harder to live, and she was feeling more and more boxed-in. No further hope had presented itself, so the only thing that made it easier was staying away from reminders of her old life as much as possible.

In addition, she needed to seem sane in order to receive Dr. Ellis' recommendation – another good reason to keep her mouth shut. Two weeks before classes began, he declared that she was all-clear. Nice and sane, mostly grounded in reality and ready to re-enter medical school.

One thing she still allowed herself was her morning ritual of calling for the Doctor by way of telephone and then meditation. It was her way of assuring herself that she had not given up.

She registered for classes as soon as she received Dr. Ellis' permission. She absorbed herself in buying supplies and books, and in perusing information that, admittedly, she already knew. One week before classes started, she received a voice mail. It was an automated mass-mailing from the university. The recording featured a voice that Martha thought she might recognise, but could not place, but she did not put much stock in it.

"Hello," the woman's voice said. "Our records indicate that you are currently enrolled in the fall course Modern Developments in Medicine beginning in seven days – we do welcome you! We are asking that all students stop by the Medical Humanities office before classes begin in order to fill out a preliminary survey regarding prior knowledge and experience so that we may serve you better in our educational capacity. The deadline is Tuesday at nine o'clock, five hours before class begins. Please do not hesitate to phone us if you have any questions. Thank you."

And so, Tuesday at eight o'clock, just before beginning her first class (again), Martha made a stop in the Medical Humanities Office. The receptionist looked in a narrow cubby-hole on her desk, presumably to find the survey, but dropped her arms in exasperation. "I guess I've run out. Just hang on a tick – I'll go get more."

Martha nodded and waited. It seemed like that's all she did these days. She had waited for Dr. Ellis to sign off on her sanity, she waited to begin school, she waited for a sign from the Doctor, she waited for her life to be sorted out so she could go back to being Dr. Martha Jones, instead of Martha Jones student and nutter.

"Hi, sorry 'bout that! I guess we underestimated how many students had enrolled in the course."

Martha turned – it was the same voice that had left the mass voice mail. A young woman with a pile of papers was approaching her, smiling big, blonde hair bobbing at her chin as she walked. So, after six weeks of nothing, _this_ is what fate decided to send her: the Rose Tyler doppelganger. Rose was a lovely person, but wasn't this just adding insult to injury? She wasn't sure whether to laugh, cry or just do as she felt and pass out. At this point, she knew there was nothing to be gained from picking at the woman's brain to find out if she knew anything about what was happening to Martha, that she would be simply dismissed as a head case. So, she simply tried her best to remain calm, and not lose consciousness.

The woman handed her a survey, and then extracted a clip board from under her arm, and a pencil from behind her ear. "What's your name then?"

"M-Martha Jones," managed to tumble out of Martha's mouth before enough time had passed for the woman to begin wondering what was wrong with her and why she'd forgotten her own name. She ran the tip of her pencil down a list and seemed to find Martha's name, then seemed to tick it off.

"All right, nice to meet you Martha," the blonde said, adjusting her papers so that she could shake Martha's hand. "My name is Billie. There are some pencils behind you on the desk – take your time with the survey, and you can go ahead and give it to Meredith when you're finished." She gestured to the receptionist.

"Excuse me," Martha asked. "Are you the professor for this course?"

"Oh no," she answered. "I'm still a student myself. I'm the professor's assistant. I teach sometimes, but not too often – he likes to be hands-on."

"Mm," Martha said. "And what's he like, the professor?"

The woman smiled big (Martha felt sure that this woman would be incapable of a _small _smile), touched Martha's arm, and said, "Listen, you have nothing to worry about. I know he's got a reputation for being tough, but he's brilliant, really. You will do fine."

"Okay," Martha exhaled uneasily. "Erm, thanks. I'll just take care of this survey."

"Good," Billie said. "We'll see you at three o'clock today. Welcome aboard, Martha Jones."

Martha managed a squeak. When Billie's back was turned, Martha watched her go. Again, her manner of dress was curious. She wore a black business suit with a white blouse and a Christian cross around her neck. Her demeanour was very much the same as Rose's, but something clearly wasn't right.

Hands shaking, she filled out the survey as quickly as possible. Then she handed it, still shaking, to Meredith. She dashed out the door and headed down in the lift.

As she waited (again with the waiting) for the doors to open on the ground floor, it occurred to her that she'd forgotten to ask Billie what the professor's name was.

Oh, _this _would be interesting indeed.


	6. Chapter 6

**THANK YOU FOR ALL THE ECSTATIC AND EXCITED AND KIND REVIEWS! UNFORTUNATELY, I'LL HAVE TO KEEP YOU HANGING A BIT LONGER... BWA HA HA! (I AM... HOW YOU SAY?... A CHEAP TEASE)**

**STAY WITH ME AND ENJOY!**

* * *

SIX

After getting coffee at the student centre, she went to her nine o'clock class which was Kinesiology. Fairly standard fodder – syllabus, course overview, buy my book, et cetera.

At ten-thirty, she found herself with a sixty-minute break, so she went back to the student centre and sat. She had brought a novel with her, but instead of diving into that, she decided to sit and watch the people pass. For the first time in weeks, she allowed herself to totally immerse in contemplating her situation. She had now run into Tom, Captain Jack, Donna and Rose – what did it all mean? None of them seemed to have the _slightest_ bloody clue that anything was amiss, and in fact had entirely different names and lives. For God's sake, Jack was a hospital counsellor who dressed like a suburban dad? Rose a suit-wearing medical student? What was next, Gwen Cooper as a nun?

She had tried reaching out to three of them, only to offend Dr. Ellis and Catherine, and convince John that she was unstable. Funny thing was, her family remained intact, exactly as she knew them, except of course, without having lived through that horrifying year that never was on board the Valiant. They were totally familiar and had their own names – Francine and Clive (apparently there never had been any Annalise or divorce in this reality), Leo and Tish.

And she could not, hard as she tried, contact the one man who might be able to work it all out. Though she had a feeling that today at three o'clock, she might have a few questions answered for her.

Around eleven, she wandered over to a little canteen in the student centre. She got a ham sandwich and a cup of tea and parked herself under an umbrella outside. She decided to get her mind off the strangeness, so she opened the novel she'd brought – _Emma _by Jane Austen. She'd never read it, wasn't that interested in it, but all she'd done was raid her mother's cabinet for something to read. Next week, she promised herself, she'd go to a proper book store and get something she actually _wanted_.

When she was nearly finished eating, a voice, a male, said hello. She had been reading and had not seen him approach. For a few seconds, she just stared at the page, wondering what weird thing was going to happen now. Am I going to look up and see the face of Mickey Smith, only now he's Donald from Liverpool or something? Or maybe Ianto, except he's an auto mechanic with a wife and kids?

When she looked up, to her relief, it was a face she did not recognise. He had curly black hair and dark skin, though not like hers – this bloke looked more Indian. His face was pleasing enough, though it had never occurred to her to be attracted to an Indian man. Curiously, though, his eyes were light-coloured, nearly grey.

"Hello yourself," she said.

"Hope you don't mind if I join you," he said, just a tinge of a foreign accent coming through. "All the other tables seem to be filled."

"Be my guest," she said, pulling her books out of the empty chair and setting them on the concrete.

The man sat down beside her with a turkey wrap and a coke, but when Martha looked around her, she saw at least three or four empty tables nearby. The newcomer saw her looking, and when her gaze fell back upon him, he smiled sheepishly.

"Okay, I lied," he told her. "I just wanted to sit with you. So sue me. My name is Raj."

She giggled a bit, happy to have someone who was interested in her for some reason other than as a case study. "Martha," she said to him. "Pleased to meet you."

"So is this your first day here, Martha?" he asked her.

"No," she told him, setting her book down. "I started... well, a few years back, and had to..."

"Yes? Had to?"

She sighed. What the hell. "Had to take some time off because, well, I was in a coma."

To her surprise, Raj did not react. He simply dug into his turkey wrap with gusto. "A coma, really? What happened to you?"

"I don't really remember," she said truthfully. "I'm told a bomb went off while I was doing my internship at Royal Hope. Then I woke up across town and now here I am."

"Been back with us how long now?" he asked, chewing.

"Twelve weeks I think," she said. "Lucky to be here. My doctor almost recommended that I not return."

"Really? Why?"

"Thought I hadn't assimilated," she said, rolling her eyes.

Raj smiled. "I know it's practically sacrilege to say so in a place like this, but sometimes," he said, leaning in close. "Sometimes doctors are wrong." He winked at her.

"Very true," she admitted.

"Sometimes, Martha," he said, leaning in even closer. His demeanour went deadly serious quite suddenly. "Sometimes, doctors are victims of what's happening around them, and they have to hide what they really think in order to stay afloat. Some of them even come so under fire that they stop being _doctors _altogether and become _teachers._ Don't you find?_"_

Her eyes went wide with alarm. "I do find that, yes," she said. "Things like that were happening a lot just before the Great War, weren't they?"

"Indeed," Raj said, nodding, eyes also wide. "Similar things happen even today, Martha. But it's very important that you not let that keep you from finishing medical school. It's very important that you attend medical school, all right?"

She sat back and stared at him. Her heart was beating a mile a minute. He stuffed a large chunk of his lunch in his mouth all at once, and suddenly his demeanour went back to normal. The cryptic air had gone, and now he was just a student again. The timer on his watch went off.

"Blimey," he said. "Got to get back to class. Listen, can I phone you sometime?"

"Y-yes!" she said, a little too anxiously. If she really believed he was interested in asking her for a date, she would have flogged herself for her eagerness, but she now knew that this Raj presented an opportunity... either that or a threat. Either way, he knew something and she was not going to let him disappear. She jotted down her parents' home number on a spare sheet of paper and handed it to him.

"And I know you're a bit out of practise," he said, standing up to go. "But let me give you some advice. One, steer clear of that new Modern Developments in Medicine professor – he's a wanker. He'll try to drag you in – don't take the bait. Two..."

He stopped.

"Two?"

"Two," he said, smiling sweetly. "Don't feel weird about your coma. Don't think of it as time out of commission. Choose to see it as an adventure, like a trek through time and space, saving people and planets, running from big monsters, experiencing history. All your dreams are real, Martha, it's just a matter of continuing to believe. Can you do that?"

"Oh, I think I can," she told him shakily.

"Good," he told her. "I'll ring you." He walked away, dumping his Styrofoam plate into a bin nearby leaving Martha staring, jaw agape, after him.

* * *

One more class, a coffee break, and after an eternity, it was three o'clock. Time to have a few questions answered. It was time to meet this professor of whom "Billie" was such a groupie, and Raj thought was a wanker. But what did he mean, he'll try to draw you in – don't take the bait?

Students filed into a large lecture hall. In spite of the tediousness of the material after having been out in the field (in a different life), the thrill of the ever-filling lecture was still very ripe within Martha. She loved this bit – she didn't know why.

Hardly anyone was talking, though there were a few people here and there who obviously knew each other from previous years' classes. But the room was mostly quiet, and the low-key atmosphere made Martha feel inexplicably nervous. She was someone who was much more comfortable in a din, when aliens were attacking, soldiers were marching and she was running for her life. Those days were gone for now.

The door on the side of the classroom opened and everyone's eyes were drawn. It was Billie. She acted as though she had no idea she was in a giant room full of people who were looking at her. She opened a laptop and hooked it up to some electronic equipment, got the LCD projector ready, and spread some files out on the front table. Then she picked up a clipboard, acknowledged the class for the first time, then took roll. She winked at Martha when she came to her name. If she had not come into contact with Raj today, Martha would have simply interpreted it as a friendly 'hey, I met you this morning,' sort of gesture. Now she wasn't so sure.

"All right," Billie said to the class. "If your name wasn't on the list you'll need to make sure you see the registrar before the next time we meet. And now... well, I guess just sit tight. The professor will be here momentarily." She sat down, extracted another laptop, and became quickly immersed.

After approximately five minutes, the door at the top of the room opened, and then slammed shut. Without looking up from her work, Billie said, "Afternoon, Professor."

Martha couldn't bring herself to look.

But soon enough a thin man was at the front of the room, facing his new crop of students. He smiled and said, "Good afternoon, all." His face was familiar, indeed.


	7. Chapter 7

**I WOULD JUST LIKE YOU ALL TO KNOW THAT A) I'M NOT TORTURING YOU ON PURPOSE, AND B) I'M STAYING ABOUT TWO CHAPTERS AHEAD OF MY POSTINGS. THAT MEANS I'M NOT THROWING IN A CURVEBALL SIMPLY IN RESPONSE TO EVERYONE THINKING THAT A CERTAIN "DAVID" WILL BE SHOWING UP NEXT...**

**SOON, THOUGH. PROMISE. :-)**

* * *

SEVEN

Oddly, something inside her lit up. The last time this man had been seen in public, he'd been known as Harold Saxon, but of course, Martha (and Martha only now, it seemed) knew him as the Master. He was wearing a black dress shirt that seemed at least two sizes too large, untucked from khaki cargo pants (also too large) with moccasins on his feet, sans socks. As with all the others, his style of dress was curious, but it was definitely him. Each weird little thing that had happened today gave her more and more hope that she was not crazy. _This _meant that the Doctor had to be nearby!

As he spoke, the professor spread his arms as though to embrace them with that fake, condescending smile Martha had come to know so well. In spite of her excitement, and her relative certainty that she was not in any immediate danger, the man still gave her the creeps. "What a _lovely _group of youngsters! My name is Professor Simm, and this is Modern Developments in Medicine. If my lovely assistant would be so kind as to distribute the syllabi, we can get started."

Billie stood up rather mechanically and handed a chunk of papers to each student on the left end of each row. Students handed them down and looked at them, almost in rhythm. Martha remembered the Doctor's words: "The Master's always been sort of... hypnotic..." and then she remembered the words of her new friend Raj. "He'll try to drag you in - don't take the bait."

Good. Point taken. Watch and learn, but do not submit to the rhythm, or whatever it was that this insect had planned.

Martha watched Billie walk back down the stairs on the side of the lecture hall. She now walked with the same rhythm in which everyone else passed papers and bobbed their heads. It was subtle, but it was there. Martha wondered why on Earth this woman was Professor Simm's assistant. Her presence in this little nightmare had made Martha so certain that the professor in question would be the Doctor... or at least look exactly like him. The surprise of seeing the Master's face had distracted her enough for the time being that she was just now thinking to wonder at his pairing with Billie.

And so, whatever this was, whatever was going on, the Master had to be behind it! She felt a surge of exhilaration at having finally worked _something _out. And he'd pulled Rose into some kind of trap, again isolating her from the Doctor... but then he'd pulled in Jack and Donna and Tom as well, and somehow missed her, Martha. But to turn Rose into his assistant, that _had _to have been designed as a big 'fuck you' for the Doctor.

In front of her, she overheard two male students. One said, "The professor's assistant is _muy deliciosa."_

"Wrong tree, mate," the second one said. "Word is, he's got her serving under him both on and _off _campus."

"Yeah, I bet he does!"

"Shhh!" Martha admonished. She didn't want to hear that. But now she knew. Even if it was a rumour, even if it wasn't true, she knew it had to be set up as a flashing beacon, daring the Doctor to come take him down. It was the worst kind of rubbing-it-in that Martha could think of.

But wasn't the Master dead? Didn't she _watch _him die in the Doctor's arms, and fail to regenerate? But then, what the hell did she know about Time Lord biology, other than the two hearts thing? For all she knew, a regeneration could be delayed twenty-four hours, or even longer! And hadn't Jack told her that the Doctor had begun to regenerate after being shot by a Dalek, but he had only channelled some sort of healing energy from his severed hand and hadn't fully changed, and come out of it looking exactly the same? What if the Master had "saved up" a regeneration somehow, and then found some way to remain the same?

Oh. Blimey, her brain hurt. She massaged her temples, pretending to be engrossed in Professor Simm's syllabus.

"As you will see on your syllabus, I have an extensive background in medical technology research, though not here in London," the professor said. "I did my undergraduate studies here, but took my M.D. from Oxford. I practised oncology for a few years in Kent, specialised in treating patients for leukaemia, but some of my colleagues counselled me that my talents could be put to better use as a professor."

_Read: you were sacked_, Martha thought.

"I took a job teaching at Canterbury Christ Church University in East Kent, where I joined a team that was researching the augmentation of lymphocytes as a possible preventative measure against leukaemia. Given my expertise, they were, of course, _ecstatic_ to have me."

Martha rolled her eyes.

"Now then," the pompous voice said from the front of the room. He sat down on the front table with his feet dangling. "This is not a class that simply teaches you about machinery, all the silly little buzzers and gadgets that my colleagues in the medical field have developed. No. In here, you will learn the history of technology in medicine – the train of thought that has brought us here. You will learn how to keep yourself informed and up-to-date. You will learn to spot which developments are in stasis and which are in flux so that you can better serve your patients. And most importantly, you will learn the ins-and-outs of developing your own technology – how to obtain patents, approval from the medical community, how to distribute your inventions, et cetera.

"You will learn through my example. My team in East Kent developed a digital lymphocyte augmentation device, upon which the patent is pending. As soon as we receive approval, we will begin our quest to see that all citizens receive the treatment just as readily as they would receive a vaccine for Polio or Mumps. With this technology, we can come very close to eradicating leukaemia!" It was as genuine a smile as Martha had ever seen on his face. "My intention is to take you through the introduction of the course, and then to lead you all into the laboratory where I have the machine waiting for you all to lay eyes upon it!"

A student toward the front asked, "I've read about this. You mean, we get to see it today?"

"Yes, indeed, my son," Professor Simm shouted, jumping to his feet, showing a bit of the open madness of the Master. "And you will see its genius, in spite of what some of my (ahem) dissenters believe."

"Dissenters?" another student asked.

"Yes," the professor said, suddenly sombre. "_Some people _think that lymphocyte augmentation would actually up the risk of cancer because of the nature of replication of white blood cells. These people are uneducated, short-sighted and jealous."

Martha's eyebrows went up instinctively. _Defensive much?_

The Professor carried on with his introduction of the course, showed his little Power Point presentation, and continued his unfettered heralding of himself and his own accomplishments. Though, this was nothing new. Martha had had several professors in med school the first time around who had been almost as bad.

Just as it felt as though Professor Simm might be wrapping up, Billie closed her laptop and stood, presumably in anticipation of shifting the class into the laboratory where the augmenter was kept.

"And now," the professor said. "If you would all follow me into room 107B. I'll lead the way."

Grandly, he exited the room and all fifty or so students filed down the hall, leaving their belongings behind.

He used a key to unlock a series of doors, and then flipped on some stark, fluorescent lights above a giant white room full of instruments and computers. Martha noted that Billie was pulling each door carefully shut behind them and locking each in sequence. Were they not supposed to be here?

There was something in the middle of the room which was covered over with a sheet. The students assumed, en masse, that this was the device they were meant to see. They crowded around it. Professor Simm pushed his way to the centre of the circle, and grabbed hold of the sheet.

"Behold, the Digital Augmenter of Lymphocytes from East Kent!" he cried out majestically.

And when he pulled the sheet away, Martha almost passed out.


	8. Chapter 8

**AND AWAAAAAY WE GO!**

* * *

EIGHT

"Of course, it's a bit bulky right now," Professor Simm was saying. "All major technological developments are, before they become refined. But rest assured, my team at East Kent is working round-the-clock to streamline the equipment so that it will be usable in every hospital in Britiain, and then the world."

_YOUR team at East Kent, eh? Tell me, why aren't you there still, Professor?_

The device was bulky indeed. It was about six feet tall and maybe five feet around at its base. A dome sat on the top, and the professor opened it, extracting ten or twelve electrical cords, each with a suction cup attached to the end.

"These," he said. "These are for stimulating the lymphopoiesis process by way of carefully meted-out electromagnetic pulses. Two at the temples, two on the biceps, two on the hands, two on the hips, two behind the knees, and finally two on the feet."

He opened a side panel and extracted an attachment which looked suspiciously like a colonoscopy probe with a CCD camera on the end. The group winced first, and then laughed uneasily.

"This is for monitoring white blood cell replication while the process is going on," he explained. "This is the part of the equation that my _esteemed_ detractors fail to understand." He hissed the word 'esteemed' with seething sarcasm, and showed his teeth as he did so.

He opened another panel just above the probe. It seemed to contain arm rests. A panel below seemed to contain foot rests. "These are simply to keep the patient comfortable while undergoing treatment." He gestured grandiosely at his accomplishment. "As you can see, this process is 100% safe, 100% guaranteed to augment lymphocytes, and 90% guaranteed to reduce significantly the risk of blood cancers, in particlar lymphoblastic leukaemia."

The students applauded demurely, as it seemed from his gestures that this is what Professor Simm expected.

"Are there any questions?" he asked.

"Professor," a female student asked, clearly disturbed by this phenomenon. "Am I to understand that the patient stands there, in the foot rests and places their arms on the arm rests while the CCD camera remains lodged in their rectum and twelve small suction cups give them uncomfortable, if not painful, electric shocks at intervals?"

"Yes," the professor answered, utterly failing to understand why the student was unimpressed.

"And you're hoping that people will flock to have this done to them, even when there is nothing wrong with them, as a preventative measure for leukaemia, which is not even a very common disease," she asked.

"Yes," he answered, with exasperation, all but rolling his eyes.

"Wouldn't it be better to concentrate on breast cancer or prostate cancer, or..."

But a much more pressing question was cloying at Martha's mind. "Professor," she asked, interrupting her fellow student, finding her voice shaky and shifty. "What sort of metal was used to make the device?"

"Stainless steel," he said, annoyed. "How on Earth could that possibly be important?" And indeed, some of her classmates looked at her strangely in response to this query.

"Oh," she said, trying to seem nonchalant. "No reason. And why is it ornamented like that, with half-spheres in descending rows? Wouldn't it have saved materials to make it flat?"

Professor Simm was seriously annoyed now. He came and stood uncomfortably close to her. She resisted the urge to reach out and feel how many hearts he had. "What is your name?" he growled.

She swallowed hard. "Martha Jones, sir."

"Well, Martha Jones," he said, scathingly. "If you must know, when we were building the device, we recruited some of the mad geniuses from the physics department to show us how best to relay electromagnetic pulses within this space. This is the shape they came up with – the half-spheres are hollow and they resonate, apparently. Satisfied, or would you like a diagram?"

She shook her head nervously. Her eyes were drawn back to the bulky piece of equipment. The last time she had seen descending rows of half spheres like that, the living beings inside had attempted to break down reality itself. The panels on the side of the digital augmenter of lymphocytes looked so much like Dalekanium, it was all she could do not to shout the word out as though she had Tourrette's Syndrome. And that domed top, complete with a probe...

But wait. If the Master was behind all this... weren't the Daleks enemies of the Time Lords? Hadn't the Master been so frightened of the Time War that he'd fled to the end of the universe and become human for a time? He couldn't be _in league_ with Daleks, could he? The Daleks always thought in black and white – no grey area reserved for Time Lords with malevolent personalities. Unless they were hybridising again...

Holy God, where was the Doctor?

Her train of thought was interrupted by a new voice.

"What is this?" it asked, genuinely confused.

All fifty-or-so eyes in the room were drawn to a door toward the back of the lab which Martha hadn't even noticed. Her heart leapt. _Finally!_ There he was, just as she knew him. He was not dressed like a circus clown or a rodeo champ or a biker dude. He looked like himself! Tall, skinny, hair in disarray, sharp features, impish eyes, nerdy glasses and the capper: a brown pin-striped suit. She even stole a glance at the shoes. Yes! White Converse! She had to hold back from bolting across the room to hug him.

"Oh, good afternoon Professor," Professor Simm said. "I was just regaling my students with the benefits of my new invention.

"Your new invention? Didn't you join the team eight weeks before they'd finished this five-year project?" the newcomer asked.

All right, so perhaps this stranger who looked like the Doctor was not _exactly_ as she knew him. He seemed to be Scottish. That was a new twist. But, if she could handle Jack in penny loafers and the Master in moccasins, what was a little Scottish accent among friends?

"It only lasted five years, Professor, because they were spinning their wheels," Professor Simm hissed. "They needed me. They'd never have finished without me."

"Oh, right," the pin-striped man said, shoving his hands in his pockets and striding towards the group. It was a familiar gesture for Martha – the man was on to something. "And the fact that replication of lymphocytes can actually _cause_ cancerous growths, did they need you to tell them that as well? Or did they already know that? Anyway, that's not the point, not for now, anyway. The point is that you are not authorised to use this lab."

"We're all colleagues here, aren't we?" Simm asked, again putting on that superfake smile that Martha loathed.

"Not when one of us is brand-new to the organisation and already on probation for questionable laboratory practises." The newcomer was peering over his glasses at Simm.

"Oh, come now, you know that that was for using acetone to clean up a blood spill in a cadavre lab."

The Scottish stranger's eyes fell upon Billie, but he continued to address Professor Simm. "It was for sending a _student_ assistant into a chemistry lab to fetch chemicals without checking them through the proper channels, and you and I both know it wasn't just acetone. Try nitroglycerine and ammonia, both in lethal quantities."

Billie shifted uncomfortably and avoided the stranger's eye. She put all her weight on one hip and bit one side of her lip. It was the most Rose-like behaviour that Martha had seen her demonstrate.

"I was using nitroglycerine in my summer anatomy class to demonstrate how it could be used as a vasodilator. And ammonia is the building block of all pharmaceuticals. Come on, Professor. Even these _students_ know this."

"Mm, and taking them from the lab without signing them out... that was for what? To save paper?"

Professor Simm laughed, but his eyes registered malice.

Without taking his eyes from Billie, he asked again, "And sending her to my office to borrow a case file and asking her to steal my key ring while my back was turned... that was for what? To save me from having to bend?"

"Is there something I can do for you?" Professor Simm asked finally, quite loudly. "Because if you're finished grandstanding, I'm trying to teach a class."

In a very Doctor-like manner, the stranger said, "Nope. Nothing at all." And he perched himself upon one of the countertops, crossed his legs and arms, sat back and watched. Martha couldn't help but smile.

Simm looked around the room uneasily. He hadn't actually expected his 'grandstanding' colleague to stay and watch, clearly, so he simply adjourned class. Students were silent as they filed through the door back to the lecture hall where they had left their belongings. As everyone moved, the Doctor-figure said to Billie, "I'll have those keys back, thanks."

Still avoiding his eyes, she shyly put the keys in his hand and then followed the rest of the students out the door. Professor Simm shot him a hateful glare, and then left the room himself. Only Martha and the tall stranger now remained.

* * *


	9. Chapter 9

NINE

"Such a shame," the man said. "That Billie. She was in my Hippocratic class in the spring. She showed promise, thought she might even TA for me. Pity I can't ever trust her again. Hello."

Martha smiled excitedly. "Doctor..."

"Oh please, let's skip the formalities. I like students to call me David. People say I'm a bit of a rogue that way. And you are?"

She delighted in the exaggerated, distinctly _Scottish_ way he said the word 'rogue,' with a rolled R and a long, closed-off 'oo' sound. The sound travelled up her spine, jump-started her heart and lodged in her throat. This tingling made her feel odd, as she hadn't felt in quite a while.

_Uh-oh... I thought I was over this._

She shook it off. "Martha Jones, sir," she said. "Pleased to meet you."

They shook hands. "Pleased to meet you as well. Is there something you'd like to talk to me about?" he asked, searching her face.

"Erm, yes!" she said, awkwardly. "I couldn't help noticing that you sort of disapprove of Professor Simm's machine."

"More than sort of," this David told her. "It's downright dangerous. And he wants to treat it like a universal vaccine, as though leukaemia were a plague."

"Well, I was wondering if you're planning on doing anything about it," she asked. She knew the Doctor would.

"How d'you mean?"

"I mean, like trying to block the patent or sabotaging the device or something."

He looked at her quizzically. "What, like I'm James Bond and he's Dr. No? I could sneak into his lair in the middle of the night and disconnect the green cable – or is it the red one?"

Martha flushed. She realised that yes, the Doctor would sabotage him, stop him, find a way to proclaim to the world that Professor Simm is a fraud. But to a presumably normal guy like David, this probably sounded completely daft.

"I'd make a good James Bond," David added with a whimsical smile. "I look good in a tux. But I'd _have _to be Connery's Bond – all the others are just cheap imitations in my book."

Now it was Martha's turn to avoid his eye. "I suppose I sound like a complete lunatic."

"No, no, I was just joshing you. Actually, you sound like someone who cares very much. Am I correct in assuming that you believe the device is dangerous as well?" he asked her.

She nodded. "It has to be."

He drew in a deep breath and exhaled it as a great sigh. He seemed to be in thought. "Well, I suppose I could publish something... you know, like, _The Case Against the D.A.L.E.K."_

Martha's heart leapt into her throat again. "The _what?_"

"Well, Simm usually calls it just 'the Augmenter', but the full name is the Digital Augmenter of Lymphocytes from East Kent. He just _had _to add that bloody bit about East Kent..."

A bit more anxiously than she would have liked, she asked, "Do you need an assistant? I could help you do research. I could be your spy, since I'm in his class. I could try to make friends with Billie and see what she knows. She and I have already met – she seems nice enough."

"Oh, forget about Billie," he said. "She's too far gone – I've seen too much now. Truth be told, I'm pretty sure she's sleeping with him."

Martha searched his face. With this revelation, he showed no pain nor jealousy, just the disappointment of a teacher whose student had gone awry. She was surprised that there was no residual Doctor/Rose longing still looming in David and Billie. Still she resolved to tread lightly in those particular waters.

"Well then, it seems like Professor Simm needs to be taken down a notch or two, in more ways than one."

David looked at her hard. "You really feel strongly about this."

"Yes!" she answered. "This man could kill people with this thing, and no one would listen to me, I'm just a student. But if _you_ published something, the world might take notice."

He smiled. "I'm just a lowly doctor from a lowly medical school. Not even Harvard or Oxford. I'm not even forty yet! I only practised medicine for seven years before coming here..."

"Then who else will?" she shouted.

"Okay, okay, calm down," he said, hopping down from his position atop the counter. He put his hands on her shoulders. "If you can be at my beck and call, then maybe I can get this done."

"You've got it," she said.

"I'd need to give you a mobile phone, and only I would have the number. And it would take up a lot of your free time, Martha. Are you sure you're game? Medical school can be tough, even without an assistantship like this," he warned.

"Oh, I'm game!" she promised. "I'm very advanced, trust me."

"I believe you. I don't know why, but I believe you."

"Maybe you knew me in a past life or something," Martha offered.

He smiled slightly sideways, an expression that Martha had always loved. "Maybe," he said.

"So, what do I do?"

"Are you in my Hippocratic Theory class tomorrow? I thought I recognised your name from the roster..."

"Yes, tomorrow at eleven."

"After class, follow me to my office and I'll have everything ready for you then."

"You've got it, Doctor," she slipped.

"You're so formal!" he laughed.

* * *

Martha walked to the tube station with a bit more bounce to her step than she had had in a long time. Finally, she had found the Doctor, even if he wasn't really the Doctor. Even if the Time Lord was dormant for now, at least she had talked the man into striking out against Professor Simm and his D.A.L.E.K. She had dealt with the Doctor as a human before, and this time it would be easier. This time, at least she had her family to turn to, a time and place she recognised and she wasn't seen as a backward African servant.

The Doctor against the Master... and presumably the Daleks again. This was _sort of_ how things should be. She almost felt that if she could get 'David' to act like the Doctor and sort out the roles, perhaps this world would collapse in on itself and reveal itself for the farce that it was.

But for now, at least she had manoeuvred herself into a position at David's right-hand. He had trusted her right away, and he himself had been surprised by this – Martha had not. When they'd first met, he had trusted her immediately, and vice versa. Even if there was no residual romantic instinct in David, at least the Doctor's common sensibilities came through.

Her mobile phone rang. "Hello?" she chirped as she boarded the Underground.

"Hey you," John's voice rang out. "How was your first day back?"

She smiled. "It was interesting," she told him. "Met up with some old friends."

"Wow, really? Like who?"

"Erm," she hesitated. "There are a couple of professors that I've had before."

"Were they glad to see you back?"

"One of them sort of was. The other one didn't really remember me."

"Well, at least there's a couple of familiar faces."

"Yep. And I met a guy. And I got myself an assistantship."

"An assistantship already? Martha, that's a lot to take in your first semester after a coma. Are you sure about this?"

She sighed. "Yes, I'm sure. And I'm just going to be his research assistant, not his teaching assistant."

"What are you going to be researching?"

She made the decision not to reveal that she'd be helping Doctor David publish against a colleague. "Oh, lymphocyte replication. Nothing terribly exciting."

"As long as you're sure. And as long as you promise to drop it as soon as you start to feel you can't handle it, okay?"

"Okay," she promised, completely lying.

"Well, I just called to see how your first day went, and to cancel our session for today – I have to take a friend to the aeroport, there was a sudden death in her family back in Romania."

"Oh, okay," Martha said. "No problem."

"But we can reschedule for tomorrow, and I wanted to see if you'd like to have a celebratory lunch with me tomorrow," he said. "You know, instead of our usual boring meeting at the hospital, in honour of your return to med school. My treat."

"Sounds nice."

John asked, "All right. What time?"

"Well, my Hippocratic class is over at 12:30," she said, thinking. "Then I have to go to the Doctor's office to get my first research task..."

"The doctor's office?"

"Erm, yeah," she backpedalled. "The Doctor, er... the professor with whom I'll be doing my assistantship."

"Okay then, how about I meet you at the sandwich shop across from the medical school... Daphne's, is it? Can you make it by one o'clock?"

"I think I can."

"Okay!"

"Okay."

"See you tomorrow."

"Yep – bye."

"Bye."

Within ten seconds of pushing the red button that ended the call, the phone rang again.

"Hello?"

"Martha? It's Raj, we met earlier today. Hope I'm not bothering you."

"Er, no! Not at all. It's good to hear from you."

"Your phone was busy a couple minutes ago," he told her. "Went straight to voice mail."

"I was talking to my friend John."

"John?"

"Yeah, he's the guy from the hospital helping me transition from comatose."

"Good bloke, John," Raj sighed.

"I suppose," Martha said, a bit sad to think on how things used to be.

"Don't worry Martha," Raj assured her. "John will be much better company once we get him back into his pea coat. So how did you like Professor Simm?"

"I'm not a fan," she answered flatly, though his comment about the pea coat had not gone unnoticed.

"Good," Raj said, rather seriously. "And his invention?"

She chose her words carefully. "I think it could be harmful."

"Seen anything like that before?" he asked.

"Oh yes. It was harmful indeed."

"And Doctor-call-me-David?"

"Now him, I liked."

"Mm. Listen, can we meet up?"

"What, now?"

"Yes, now."

"Er, okay." Normally, she would not have agreed to something like this, but today had not been a normal day. She _knew _that Raj knew something, and now that the Doctor was just as far out of commission as Jack and Rose and Donna, Raj seemed like a lifeline.

"King's Head Tavern. Do you know it?"

"Yeah, it's on Moscow Street or something."

"I'm leaving now."

"I'll change trains, next chance I get."


	10. Chapter 10

**OKAY, GET READY FOR A BIG, UNSUBTLE INFO-DUMP. RAJ'S NAME MIGHT AS WELL BE "EXPOSITION GUY." SORRY!**

* * *

TEN

She got herself a Shirley Temple and sat down. She was sipping on it, staring into space, when Raj entered. He grabbed himself a coke and sat down with her.

"Martha," he said. He reached out to shake her hand. "You know, under different circumstances, I'd have half a mind to ask you out on a date."

"Wait, that's not what we're doing?" she asked.

He laughed. "We can pretend, I suppose."

"Okay. What's your sign?"

"Food and petrol, next left. Yours?"

"Mine too! It's like kismet!" she exclaimed.

After a brief silence, Raj broke eye contact, then said. "So, I suppose you're wondering what the hell is going on."

Martha sighed. "Yes. I am."

He looked up at her. "You have been very patient, Martha, and you haven't lost hope. That's one of the reasons why we chose you. You are an indomitable spirit. The Doctor thought so too. I know he made you feel second-best a lot of the time, but he never really thought that."

"Thanks for that," she said sincerely. "Chose me for what?"

"We chose you to be the one who remembers."

"I'm not sure how to feel about that right now," Martha told him.

"I know it's difficult," he said. "But it's like I told you this morning, it's very important that you persevere. Dark forces are at work, and it's vital that we fight against them. What happened with the Doctor today?"

"You mean David?" She said his name with big, exaggerated air-quotes and a roll of her eyes.

"Yes, him."

"He came in during Professor Simm's presentation and really took the piss out of him." She said this with glee, with relish. "He clearly disapproves of the Augmenter."

Raj whispered. "The thing that looks like a Dalek."

"Yeah! And by the way... _disturbing!_ But apart from that, medically speaking, this lymphocyte augmentation... I think it's dangerous, especially doled out like a vaccine."

Raj told her, "Indeed. But it's just a ruse. What that machine really does is something like what you saw in Manhattan in the 30's. The, er, rectal probe transforms people into upright-walking Daleks. Humourless, emotionless, ruthless. All he would have to do is get something like 25% of Great Britain, and they would be able to topple the Earth."

"Whoa! Does the Master know?"

"We don't think so. We're fairly certain he's as clueless as Billie and Catherine and John and the rest."

Martha blinked a few times. "I didn't see that coming."

"Did you talk to David at all?"

"Yeah. Then when everyone left, I stayed on to talk with him. I convinced him that he should publish something to rebut the device. I even volunteered to be his research assistant."

"You persuaded him to speak out against Simm and his Augmenter?"

"Yes," Martha said, pulling a face. "Is that bad?"

"No, that's brilliant. Plant the seed, get David to act like the Doctor, lash out against the Master, fight the Daleks... He's got the strongest minde of them all, and the closer he gets, the more his memories will start to surface. My guess is that just being around Simm and Billie has given him some interesting nightmares. He probably had a flash of something when he met you today... no, no, this is great!"

Martha smiled. She had been right. Her instinct that she could set things right by turning David against Professor Simm had been correct.

"But why is he Scottish?"

Raj chuckled. "I don't know. Just like I don't know why Billie has that cross around her neck, or why Catherine wears a Wonder Bra. Their histories and personalities have been re-written. I suppose for the Doctor, an alternate reality was created wherein some kid named David was born and educated in Scotland. The technology used is semi-sentient, which means that sometimes, it just chooses without any rhyme or reason."

She looked at him quizzically, and for a few awful moments, Raj wondered if she didn't trust him. Then she asked, "I'm sorry, but who the hell are you? I mean, I live for twelve weeks in Crazyland, and then you show up out of nowhere and seem to know everything about me, my old life."

"I'm not human, but I look like one," Raj told her. "But I guess that's not going to be big news to you. I'm from the planet known as Kaf Celape, do you remember that?"

"Yes! Yes I do! I remember being kidnapped in the lower level of Torchwood and dragged into a little room, and then I woke up here. But John told me that Khef Selapi was some head case who worked at the private hospital while I was in my coma, and that he'd tried to revive me with chemicals."

"My brother, I'll use your word, _kidnapped _you. We're sorry that we frightened you, but it had to get done in a hurry. By the time we reached Torchwood, the Doctor was already sucked in, and Jack got pulled in before we could stop it. We had to protect you, and we didn't have time to explain. Very, very sorry for that, Martha."

"Oh, my God."

"My cover-name here is Raj Selapi, and according to the Council, I'm the brother of Khef who is in jail for assaulting you. He didn't get away before reality collapsed, and suddenly he found himself in some hospital basement being arrested. Fortunately, the whole process was completed by then, and though my brother had to be sacrificed to the system, our goal was met: you are here, and you are lucid."

"Reality collapsed? What's causing that?"

"Well, it didn't so much as collapse as turn inside-out. You might remember that the Kaf Celape are very good at bending reality?"

"Vaguely."

"You see, a while back, our planet was visited by a charming bloke called Davros. We had never seen a Dalek before, and he convinced us that his plans were on the up-and-up and got us to show him our reality-bending technology. I regret to say that my people gave him the tools he needed to do... this." Raj gestured around the room, indicating this alternate world.

"Wow. That's huge."

"Yes, well. As soon as we worked out what he was up to, the harmful process he was planning on foisting upon the human race, and that the reality bending was meant to incapacitate everyone associated with his 'greatest enemy,' we summoned the Doctor to warn him, and also to gain his expertise. One day while he was on our planet, our machinery went haywire, and then he simply disappeared. We found him on Earth a few weeks later, working at the university, with no knowledge of his life as a Time Lord. He was the first one sucked in, as it were. So we went to Torchwood, as we figured, in the absence of a travelling companion, the second-in-command would be Jack Harkness. We were there, as you know, for about a week and then Jack was sucked in. So we took you out of the line of fire by..."

"...pumping me with some sort of chemicals," Martha finished his thought.

Raj gestured to say 'you're right'. "We gave you a dose of something that made you invisible to the scanner that detects subjects of the reality transfer. We use it on ourselves sometimes when we're 'fixing things' as it were. Oh, and we had just enough time to keep your family intact so you'd have some kind of anchor, but technically, they are victims of this process as well, since they don't remember the Doctor or the Master or anything."

"But the Master is dead! What's he doing here."

"He did not die, he exiled himself to a different reality – that is a long, long story which I will leave for the Doctor to regale you with someday, if we ever get out of this mess. But the Master is, in spite of all practical appearances, a Time Lord. Therefore Davros saw him as a threat. He pulled the Master and Rose out of their respective alternative realities at the same time and dumped them in this world together, that's why they're so close here. They both carry some kind of residue from the dragging-across that was done to them, and it attracts them to each other like magnets. Has the Doctor ever talked to you about _void stuff_?"

"No."

"Damn," he said. "Well, it attaches to a being that crosses the void space between realities. However, there is an extra interdimensional polarity as a result of pulling the subjects across two _separate_ realities, especially if one of them is a false, manufactured reality like this one. Professor Simm and Billie are... well, you get the idea." Raj tipped an eyebrow at her suggestively.

"Ugh," Martha groaned. "I don't even want to think about that."

"Yeah, well, get used to it. The rumours are true. Reality collapsing makes for strange bedfellows."

"Ugh," Martha said again.

"And what's more, that same residue that they carry is repelling them from everyone else who is a victim of this, which is why The Doctor and Rose bristle when they see each other. Basic quantum physics, I'm afraid."

"What about me? I didn't bristle when I saw her, and I have good reason to," she asked.

"You're not really a victim are you? You're still Martha Jones! And! I think you'll find that you're the only one in this little game who's got any family or friendly ties. Have you heard any of them discuss their past?"

"Just John," Martha answered. "He told me about his friend Chris."

"We think that's a residual memory of another version of the Doctor, before he regenerated into the Doctor that you know. For some reason John remembers him as an old boyfriend."

Martha giggled. "Aw," she drawled. "That's cute. Some things don't change."

There was a long silence while Martha processed it all, and Raj let her. Each of them sipped at their drink slowly. Martha was first to speak again.

"So what do I do? Same thing as 1913, wait for it to blow over? Or blow up?"

Raj sat back in his chair. "No, because in 1913, his biology had been rewritten. Not this time. He's still a Time Lord in his cells, it's only his mind that's been altered. And as I've said, and as you already know, his mind is perhaps the strongest in the universe."

"So I keep giving him things to remind him of who he is?"

"Yes, exactly," he said. "Don't go too fast or he will shut it all out. But if we can bring him round before Davros puppets the Master into getting it approved for universal vaccinations, then we can thwart the whole thing. But as I've told you, my people had never seen a Dalek before a few months ago, and we know nothing about them. If we're going to stop them, we're going to need the Doctor."

"Okay," Martha said, the wheels in her brain turning rapidly. "I'll spend as much time with him as I can, and start implating ideas... giving him images... But wait, what about the Master? Couldn't that just as easily be done to him?"

"Possibly," Raj said. "He is no Doctor, but all Time Lords were blessed with superior intellect."

"Should I work on him as well? If he's an enemy of the Daleks, won't he pull away from the scheme as soon as he knows about it?"

"With the Master, it could go either way. It's hard to say what will take precedence in his moral compass, the hatred of Daleks or the hatred of humankind. It's a risk. Better to leave him in the dark until we have the Doctor nice and lucid."

Martha sat up straight, and looked at Raj with renewed hope. She had a task. She knew what to do. She held out her hand. "Thank you, Raj."

"You're welcome, Martha," he said, kissing, rather than shaking her hand. Then he looked at her slyly. "You already have a plan, don't you?"

She smiled. "Yes. I'll see you later."

She stood up and left the tavern, and as she did so, she dialled her mobile phone. "John? Martha. Change of plans."


	11. Chapter 11

ELEVEN

"First do no harm," were David's first, very loud, words to Martha's eleven o'clock class the following day. He had entered the room two minutes late with a giant smile on his face and a big bundle of syllabi under his arm. Those he had plopped on the desk of a student in the front row while still looking up at all the new faces of the class. Then he had stood back a bit, hands in pockets (blue suit today, with red trainers), and considered. Suddenly, he had burst forth with the words, "First do no harm," and then begun to pace.

"Common misconception," he said. "These words do not actually appear in the Hippocratic Oath, and there is no proof that Hippocrates ever said them. Nevertheless, it's a chuffing good philosophy, wouldn't you say?" He caught Martha's eye and winked.

A few students nodded along.

"Obviously, Hippocrates is credited with it because he's the 'father of modern medicine,' but really, it's just common sense, isn't it? You're a doctor; do what you must to help, but above all, don't make things worse." He paused. "Well, I've got news: sometimes, you _will _make things worse, but we are all only human."

Martha smiled at this. _Aw, it's cute that he thinks he's human_.

"But how do you handle it when you've made a mistake? Do you cover it, or come clean? How do you fix it, and maintain your integrity – and your licence?

"And I've got more news. Sometimes, your colleagues will make things worse! And that's bad, because what do you do then? How do you intervene? What are the proper channels? Is it your duty to do _anything_? Sometimes nurses and orderlies and counsellors working under you will make things worse, and you are legally responsible. What then? Sometimes patients make things worse for themselves. Do you strap them down and torture them until they bow to your will? What's your moral obligation? What are the contstraints of the law?

He let those questions stew a bit, and eyed the class as he continued to pace.

"Well, all of those questions can and will be answered in this class," he told them. He took a deep breath and said loudly, "This is Hippocratic Theory, section two. If you're in the wrong class, now would be a good time to own up to your mistake and stop making things worse."

Martha knew that was a joke, but no one laughed. She also knew that David didn't really expect anyone to.

"We study what we call 'Hippocratic Theory' partly because Hippocrates was the first doctor ever to dismiss daemons and evil forces as the cause of disease. Thank heaven for him, eh? Without him, you might be sitting in Exorcism School right now."

That got a laugh.

"But you're not, because Hippocrates separated the discipline of medicine from religion. He didn't hold with the idea that disease was a punishment from the gods, but rather the result of a combination of environmental and internal factors – fancy that. Now, he wasn't perfect, he did get a few things wrong, and Greek medicine split into two schools of thought. And truth be told, modern medicine has much more to do with the other... but Hippocrates must be credited with this as well. Without him... well, you know."

The class continued with a much more in-depth lecture on Hippocrates himself. David was, not surprisingly, a veritable font of information. He had details that made her wonder if he was perhaps drawing on the Doctor's memory of meeting Hippocrates! She supposed it was more than possible. He took such great care in dispensing details in rapidfire fashion, that he wasn't anywhere near finished when twelve-thirty hit, and someone reminded him to dismiss the class.

Once again, the room emptied around her and she found herself alone in a spacious room with a Scottish man in a suit.

"Well, that went well," he said, leaning against a desk.

"Yes," she said. "Very informative. _Very_ informative."

He smiled. "All right, sometimes I get carried away. I'll rely upon you to stop me when I do that in future. You are my assistant now, and the more I think on that, the more I think it's a good idea. Because sometimes I need someone."

She smiled back. "You can count on me."

"Right then," he said, clapping his hands. "Let's go to my office, shall we?"

As they walked, she asked, "Erm, how did you know that Hippocrates was allergic to olives?"

David considered for a long moment. "Well, it must have been in a journal of his or something."

"Mm, olive allergy, identified in antiquity. Interesting," she said. "And how did you know that he had hands that were smaller than average?"

He stopped walking and looked at her. "D'you know, I have no idea. I guess I made it up..." Now he was staring off into space, wondering. She wondered if he had the 21st century professor's version of _The Journal of Impossible Things _where he jotted down all of the insane things that popped into his head when he remembered being a Time Lord.

She let him stand there for as long as he needed. She wanted him to access those memories. She wanted, needed him to wonder how and why he knew the things he knew.

Eventually, he began walking again. They made small talk about the weather as he led her up four flights of stairs and across a flyover into a very hot building. When he opened a door at last, to her relief, they were flooded by a blast of air conditioning. And she was startled at the sight of her neighbour, the red-headed Catherine sitting at a desk.

"Hi!" Martha said to her. "What are you doing up here? I thought you worked down in admissions."

"I did," Catherine told her. "I put in for a transfer over a year ago, and finally got it last week. Martha, is it?"

"Yeah," Martha said, shaking her hand.

"You two know each other?" David asked.

"Next door neighbours," Catherine told him.

"Brilliant," David commented. "You'll get along well then. Have you got anything for me?"

"Yes," Catherine said, handing him a small piece of yellow paper. "Dr. Finbury called back about an hour ago."

"Oh, yes!" David exclaimed. "Is he going to do it?"

"He says he will, but he's asked to remain anonymous."

"Oh, Catherine, you are my hero," he said, coming around the desk to kiss the top of her head. One arm around her, he said, "Martha, that shall be our first order of business. Dr. Finbury was on the research team in East Kent that developed the Augmenter along with Simm. He's agreed to be interviewed as part of our research."

"Great, what do you need from me?"

"Well, step into my office," he said. He gestured toward a door and Martha went through it. She looked about with utter wonder and shock. _Oh my God_. Police badges lined up on the walls from different eras. Long-outdated hats from London bobbies. Billy clubs in various states of disrepair, even cheap, plasticky bobble-headed dolls in police gear. Shelves and framed memorabilia covered three walls.

"What is all this?" she asked.

"Oh," he said, smiling embarrassedly. "I collect police memorabilia – it's a little obsession of mine."

"Er, was your father a policeman or something?"

"No, no," David told her, looking around with seeming wonder himself. "I never knew my father. And I don't know why I became fascinated with police things... I suppose it's like people who somehow get infatuated with minature angels or painted eggs."

"Do you have more at home?" she asked.

"No, this is the entire collection," he said. "I keep it all in one place – I'm rather a completist, even though I never feel like it's complete. It really is an obsession, a lust, even. It's like when people collect comics and they keep hoping for that _one_, that limited edition from the first run of Superman, or the one which was banned and burned during the Blitz, and so only five copies remain in the whole world... I'm waiting for the crown jewel of my collection to fall into my lap."

Already knowing the answer, she asked, "And what do you suppose the crown jewel of a police memorabilia collection could be?"

"I don't know," he mused. "I'll know it when I see it. Meantime, I just keep searching the rummage sales, going to police auctions and antique shops, picking up things along the way to tide me over until I find what I'm looking for."

"And what will you do when you have it?"

He looked at her and smiled. "Never thought that far ahead. I won't know what to do with my week-ends then."

This made her very sad. _Something is cloying at him, and he's trying to discover who he is._

"Anyway," he said, sitting down at the desk. The large bureau was in complete disarray, though Martha had no doubt that he knew exactly where everything was. Sure enough, he reached into a jumbled pile of papers and came out with a yellow sheet torn from a legal pad. He handed it to Martha. A set of questions was written on it, pertaining to Professor Simm's conduct while he was at East Kent. There were no questions about the apparatus itself or about the man's beliefs regarding lymphocyte augmentation, only about Simm as a researcher and colleague. He also handed her the telephone message that Catherine had just given him. "I'd like to begin our work by assessing Simm's methods and finding out what his colleagues involved in the project thought of him. I'd hate to attack the work itself before I know for sure that I'm not the only one who thinks he's a nutter."

"Fair enough," she said. "And you'd like me to call."

"Yes," he said. "Just stick to these questions as much as you can. Can you do shorthand?"

"No," she responded. "But I can type pretty fast. I'll just sit at my computer and take a rough dictation."

"Excellent plan. Do you think you can have this done before the week-end?"

"Absolutely," she promised. "I'll have some answers for you before you leave the university on Friday afternoon."

A knock came at the door. David said, "Enter!"

It was Catherine. "Er, Martha, there's someone here to see you."

"Really?" David said. "Okay." He stood and followed Martha out to the main office area.

John stood near Catherine's desk, waiting.

"John!" Martha said cheerfully. "Thanks for coming up."

"No problemmo," he answered.

"I just thought you two should meet," Martha explained awkwardly. "John, this is David, the professor I'll be working with on... a research project. David, John is someone who is seeing me through my, er, transition."

Each with a narrrowed eye turned on the other, John and David shook hands. Martha was certain she saw a spark of recognition there, if not in John then in at the very least, in the deep recesses of David's mind. The same part of him that made him obsessively collect police memorabilia made him think he'd seen John somewhere before.

"Nice to meet you," David said. Of Martha, he asked, "What sort of transition?"

_Oh shit, I forgot to tell him about the coma._

"What sort of research?" John asked.

She put one hand on each man's shoulder, and suggested, "Why don't we all go to lunch?"


	12. Chapter 12

**PLEASE FORGIVE ME IF I HAVE FUDGED THE FACTS ABOUT ENGLISH GEOGRAPHY A BIT, AND/OR THE PROCESS OF ACQUIRING ANTIQUES IN THE INTERNATIONAL MARKET. I'M NEW AT THIS.**

* * *

TWELVE

Martha used her Friday morning before David's class to call Dr. Finbury. Just as she and David had suspected, the good doctor thought Professor Simm's methods were shoddy, that his ethics were questionable and that his science had been fudged in order to justify quicker production of the Augmenter. After class that day, she delivered the rough transcript she had typed out to David.

"Martha, you are brilliant," he said. He looked through the pages. "This is beautiful. Now we can proceed as planned."

Once again, she followed him up to his office. As they walked, he said, "Hey, thank you for inviting me to lunch the other day. Just to clarify, you aren't trying to fix me and John up, are you?"

She laughed out loud. "No! God no! What would make you think that?"

"I don't know," he said, self-consciously. "You were sort of vague about why you were introducing the two of us, and... he looked at me kind of funny. God, I sound like a homophobic schoolboy."

"Well, I noticed you looking at him kind of funny too," she said. But she was quick to assure him, "But I was pretty sure it wasn't because you fancied him."

"No, it was because..."

"What?"

"Oh, he was just so familiar to me," he answered. "I can't place him for the life of me."

"Well, I'm sorry I gave you the wrong impression, and I'm sorry if I was being all strange and vague. Really, it's because, well, John didn't think it was a good idea for me to be your research assistant and I thought if he met you, it would be easier for him to accept. And look: it worked."

He stopped in the doorway of the office and looked at her seriously. "But really, Martha. You should have told me about the coma. Why didn't you?"

"Because I don't think it's relevant to what I'm trying to do with my life now."

"Fair enough," he said. "But if you get tired, you feel any sort of..."

"I'll stop, I promise."

"Okay."

They proceeded into his inner sanctum of police memorabilia.

"Week-end plans?" he asked, sitting down behind his desk.

"That depends upon what you're about to ask me to do," she told him, sitting across from him.

"I'd like you to get in touch with the physics department at East Kent," he told her.

"Find out about the construction of that thing?"

"Yep," he said, popping the P. "And while you're at it, it wouldn't hurt to ask some of the same questions of the physicists as you asked of Finbury."

"I'll have it for you Monday."

"No, no," he said. "Take your week-end to do as you'd like. Have you got a boyfriend?"

She thought of Tom. "No," she said, looking down at her hands in her lap. "Not anymore."

"Good," he said.

"Why good?" she asked, flushing all over.

He began to stammer. "Oh, I didn't... I, er... Sorry..."

She laughed.

"I meant to say 'oh'. Not good, just 'oh.'" Then he smiled uneasily.

"Okay," she said. "You? Girlfriend?" She felt it was the right, polite question to ask, even though she knew he wouldn't have a girlfriend.

"No," he said, no hint of sadness. "Not in a long, long time."

"What are your week-end plans?" she asked.

"I'll be reading up on lymphoblastic leukaemia, and if I'm lucky, I'll get to an antique auction in Oxford," he told her.

"Er, would it be too forward of me to ask to come with you?"

"To Oxford?"

"Yes."

"You like antiques?"

"Well... no. But I'm curious about this hobby of yours."

"Well, I'd love the company," he said, smiling widely. "I suppose it couldn't hurt."

"Just phone me with the details."

"That reminds me," he said, opening a drawer. He pulled out a still-wrapped Virgin mobile phone. "This is yours. I'm the only one with the number, all right?"

"Gotcha."

"I'll ring you tomorrow."

"Good."

* * *

On Sunday, a silver car pulled up in front of the Jones residence at eight in the morning. David got out of the car and waved at a second floor window where he could see Martha looking out. She gestured that she'd be down in one minute.

"Martha, your date is here," her mum called up the stairs.

Martha rolled her eyes as she came downstairs with her backpack. "Mum, he's not my date, I told you."

"I don't know if I approve of you going on a trip with one of your professors. It just reeks of..." Francine shivered exaggeratedly.

"It's not a trip, it's an hour's drive to an antique sale."

"Why can't he take someone else?"

"I don't think he has anyone else, mum. Besides, if I'm going to be his research assistant, I need to get to know him."

"Yeah, well, you just be careful. Don't drink any alcohol, it'll lower your defences."

Martha rolled her eyes again, then kissed her mother on the cheek. "Duly noted. I'm going now."

They approached the front door, and her mother looked through the little curtain and saw David leaning against the car, staring down the street.

"Oh please, Martha! You think I was born yesterday?"

"What?"

"Look at him! Not a date, my eye!"

"I know, I know," Martha said. "But being good-looking doesn't make him not lonely, mum."

Martha had seen that disapproving look a million times over, but it had never ceased to bother her. Nevertheless, she said, "Bye, mum. I'll be back tonight."

"Right," her mother said.

Martha shut the front door behind her and came down the front stairs with a big smile. "Hi!" She noted that his clothes were a bit different from what she was used to. Dark blue dress shirt with a maroon t-shirt showing underneath, with jeans and his usual Converse. She liked it. It didn't freak her out like the other cast of characters and their odd costumes.

"Hi!" he called. "What's in the backpack?"

"Oh, just some snacks, rain gear, a couple books on antiques..."

"Wow, you've done homework?" he asked, opening the passenger door for her.

"A bit."

He shut the door and came round. As he slid in, he said, "Well, as your teacher, I have to say I heartily approve."

She giggled.

The drive was pleasant enough. She learned very little about David, because David seemed to know very little about himself. Born _somewhere _in Scotland, not sure where because he'd been orphaned and raised in institutional care outside Edinburgh. He'd always wanted to be a doctor, never been married, no children, no long-term relationships to speak of...

But that was okay, because her goal was to _implant_ information. She gave him lots of details about her family, including that her sister had once worked for Richard Lazarus. "I've heard of him," David said. She told her life's story, implating little clues to jog David's Doctor memories. It was working, she could see, but she could also see that he was still pushing away those thoughts, and at least consciously, dismissing them as passing fancies.

The antique auction was much more informal than Martha had expected. They found themselves in an old glass factory on the way out of town to the west. It had been out of commission for at least two hundred years, but had been used since then for various functions like this, also as a hospital, as storage for the adjacent woodworking factory and as squatter's territory for vagabonds. Some bleachers had been wedged into the space, and perhaps fifty people were already there when David and Martha arrived. They took their seats in a very small rectangle of space in the front row. The front bleacher was about twelve inches above the ground, and Martha chuckled at seeing David fold himself in half in order to sit down without pushing his feet past the velvet rope.

They were squeezed together with no daylight between her right arm and his left. It was the closest she had been to him since finding him again. She found that it made her heart beat faster just to be able to feel him. For the second time in a week, she admonished herself for these feelings. She still considered herself "taken," even though Tom was clueless, and the path of love for the Doctor went nowhere, as she well knew. She took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down.

"Oh, that's beautiful, isn't it?" she heard him say. But more importantly, he had unconsciously reached his left hand over her, probably just to get her attention. His arm was crossing her body, and his hand was on her calf. She looked up at him. He was totally absorbed in what he was seeing, absolutely not aware of what he was doing. "Eh?" he said, waiting for a response.

She looked at the auctioneer. He was displaying a small frame, an under the glass was a group of United States postage stamps from the 1970's which featured different law enforcement themes.

He was saying, "They were only in circulation for twelve weeks during the summer of 1972, and only about two thousand were printed. These are unused and would make a fine addition to any philatelic collection. Shall we begin the bidding at one hundred pounds?"

"Yeah, they're great," Martha said, distracted.

David's left arm moved into the air as he bid. He seemed totally unaware of how he had touched her.

"That's what I came here for," he whispered to her. "I've been following those stamps since they came up for sale in California a few months ago. None of the philatelists in America wanted them – too busy clamouring for the limited edition Elvis stamps. All the better for me."

David wound up winning the bidding war, at five hundred thirty-five pounds. He whispered, "Come on." He took Martha's hand and they left the disused factory by the front door. He led her around the back where there was a little room with a table set up, ready for the buyers to come and claim their wares. He wrote a cheque and then took her hand again as they watched a woman pack his new acquisition carefully in a box and padded it with tissue.

"What will you do with it?" she wanted to know.

"Don't know," he shrugged. "Hang it on the wall of my office with all the other stuff."

"You're going to need a bigger office pretty soon," she laughed.

David's mobile rang in his pocket. He exhaled, annoyed. "Sorry," he muttered to Martha. "Hello?"

Martha listened to one side of a conversation. "Oh, hey, Catherine. What? Really? Blimey, what an idiot. What time is this happening? Okay, does Finbury know? I don't know... forget I asked. What, now? I'm in Oxford with Martha. Yes, Martha. We're at an antique auction, why? No... no, stop it. I won't, I promise." He let out a great sigh. "Goodbye, Catherine."

"What?" Martha asked.

"Well, she's warning me not to, you know... develop a reputation. You know, like Simm and Billie."

"My mum said the same thing this morning!"

"Because everyone knows that going to antique auctions always leads to sex?"

Martha laughed. "Yes, it must be that really hot, fast-talking auctioneer."

David cleared his throat. "She rang to tell me that Simm has set up a demo for tomorrow," David told her. "He's recruited one of the doctors from East Kent to do a lecture with him on augmenting lymphocytes, and then the two of them are going to demonstrate the Augmenter on themselves."

Martha remembered what Raj told her. Above and beyond the risks of lymphocyte augmentation, the machine was really meant to turn human beings in to walking Dalek hybrids. Humourless, emotionless, ruthless.

"Well, David, we have to stop him!" she cried out.

He sniffed. "Why? It's his funeral. Besides, it might actually be good for our research," he told her.

Martha knew that _the Doctor_ would want to save the Master from this fate, in spite of what David said about Professor Simm. She mentally searched for a reason why they needed to stop this from happening, a reason that David would understand.

"Because!" she shreiked. "Because, if they... if they do this lecture, and get a bunch of students to buy into it, and get publicity, it will spark... a debate! Outside of our school! All over the country. And when there's a debate, there's always a big push for advancement, and then people will be lining up to do it without having all the facts... Simm will be able to control the information... we can't let it happen David, we just can't!"

"Okay, okay, calm down, Martha," he said, his hands on her shoulders. "I'm glad that you're so passionate about this."

"Sorry," she said. "This thing just makes me angrier than I would like."

"Okay," he sighed. "Okay. You may be right. Maybe any kind of attention on this thing right now would be bad... maybe he is going for publicity..."

"See? Exactly."

"All right. It's still early. Let's get back to London, and we'll go to Professor Simm, and we'll try to talk him out of it."

"Thank you," she said, relaxing.

"While we're on the move, let's give Dr. Finbury a ring and see if he would be willing to help," David suggested.

They piled into the car and headed back the way they had come. Unfortunately, the expressway back to London was undergoing repairs, and was therefore hopelessly jammed. Luckily, David knew some side-roads that would get them there – not as fast as the expressway, but faster than waiting for the repairs to finish. They found themselves on little used, elapsed roads alongside towns that time had left behind. Martha had forgotten how lovely the English countryside could be – it had been a long time since she'd thought about it, or seen it at such slow speed.

When they were well on their way, Martha dug Finbury's number out of her purse and dialled. His voice mail answered. "Dr. Finbury, it's Martha Jones. We weren't sure if you knew about this, but we've just received word that Professor Simm and one of your colleagues from East Kent are planning on lecturing tomorrow about the Augmenter, and then they're planning on demonstrating the process on themselves. We sort of think it's a bad idea, without more research. We're in Oxford now, and we're headed back to London and we're going to see if we can talk him out of it. We wondered if you had anything to add, or if you'd like to join us in London, maybe, or... I don't know. Anyway, ring me back, or my cooperating professor, at the number I gave you before. Thanks."

They drew up a rough plan. David would go back to the university and get into the database to find out where Simm lived. He hoped that the East Kent doctor would be there as well so that he could address both of them, and if Simm (who was stubborn and proud) wouldn't relent, perhaps his partner-in-crime would. Martha's job was to go to find out which lecture hall was being used, and try to appeal to the building supervisor and/or whomever booked special events on the campus. Afterwards, they would meet up for dinner to talk again, and to draw up plan B if necessary.

Martha was agitated – more so than was David. He did not understand the gravity of what would happen if the two men had a chance to use the Augmenter. Her legs were crossed, and the top foot was bouncing nervously.

"Why are you so nervous?" he asked her.

"It's just that..."

But she did not have a chance to finish her thought because at that moment, they heard a loud 'pop,' and the next thing they knew, the car was spinning out of control. Martha lost consciousness just after the car turned upside down in a narrow plain beside the deserted road.


	13. Chapter 13

**WELL, HERE WE GO. I SUPPOSE I'LL MAKE SOME HAPPY WITH THIS CHAPTER AND DISAPPOINT OTHERS. IF YOU'RE ONE OF THE LATTER, I APOLOGIZE. I JUST HAD TO ASK MYSELF, WHAT WOULD I DO?**

* * *

THIRTEEN

For a few brief, shining moments, Martha thought she'd awakened in her old life. She felt the same odd, spinning sensation as when she'd opened her eyes from her so-called coma. She allowed herself to hope that she might now be able to phone the Doctor and run alongside him as they stopped Davros, saved the Master (if necessary) from becoming a hybrid, and yanked Rose from the evil clutches of...

She felt a cold cloth run across her forehead, and beneath her head, something like a water balloon. Then a hand, stroking her head. She groaned, "What the hell happened?"

"The car flipped over," a voice said. "We were sabotaged."

It was definitely the Doctor's voice, but the Scottish accent was painfully apparent. Damn, she was still here.

"Sabotaged? By..."

"Don't try to talk," he said. "Just work on getting your eyes open so I can check them."

She obeyed. Her lids were swollen shut and difficult to pry apart. Finally, with some effort, she was able to see. She saw a dusty wooden ceiling in twilight, and quite a few insects flying about.

"I'm going to check for concussion, all right?" he asked.

"Okay."

He leaned over her, and she saw his face appear upside-down. She surmised now that she was lying on the floor with her head in his lap. He pried her eyes open and examined her pupils.

"You've got really mild concussion," he said. "I guess it looks worse than it is."

She became aware of something crusty on the left side of her forehead. She reached up to touch it. It felt like a gash that had been stitched up. "Did you stitch me up?"

"Nope," he told her. "Wasn't me. Lucky someone did though, because it looks pretty nasty. You've also got some bruising about the left side of your face, but it's already yellowing."

She sat up and looked at him. His face and head looked as always, but his right arm was in a sling. "Oh," she said, seeing it for the first time. "Someone patched you up as well."

"I think my elbow is dislocated. Also, I seem to have some cuts and scrapes." He showed her that his right trouser leg was torn and there was a negligible amount of dried blood. "Whoever did this to us came prepared. I guess the good news is that they didn't want us dead."

"What do you mean _whoever_? We know exactly who this was."

David sighed. "I've been trying not to go there."

"How long have we been here?"

"I don't know - I've been awake for about half an hour. It must have taken at least a couple of hours to drag us here and get us both treated, though. Plus, it's getting dark."

She looked around her. They were on the floor in a narrow space behind what looked like a check-out counter with a glass case. Through the glass, she could see rows of empty metal shelves and two or three very old cigarette posters. Beyond that, boarded-up windows. Confusedly, she said, "It looks like a petrol station."

"That's exactly what it is, only long-abandoned," he said. "I've already looked for a way out. As far as I can tell, there's only one exit, and it's barricaded from the outside. We're sealed in. At least we have a toilet that works."

She began to panic a little. "Well... what are we going to do for food?"

"Look," he said, pointing to a supply shelf below the glass case. On it a few things were lined up in plain sight, clearly for them to find. Martha saw first the contents of her backpack, which included a box of shortbread and a little plastic bag of apple slices, and also two rain ponchos and a couple of pairs of clean socks.

But there was also a jar of peanut butter, some beef jerky and a large jug of water. Beside that, there was a stack of washcloths, several bottles of pills, including anti-inflammatories (for concussion patients) and two kinds of painkillers, and a couple of flower-scented jar candles with a stack of matchbooks.

This gave Martha an odd sort of chill. "Someone provided for us to be here a while," she said. "I don't like that."

"I don't either, but at least we're not going to lie here in pain and starving. But I won't lie - a deck of cards might have been nice."

"Well, I have a solitaire game on my mobile," Martha said. Then it dawned on her. "Mobile!"

"Forget it, I checked. They're gone. They didn't want us dead, but they didn't want us found either."

"Damn it!" she cursed. "What do we do?" The useless thought that the Doctor with his sonic screwdriver would be able to break them out of here in two seconds crossed her mind, but she shook it off. No use going down that road.

"Well, first we wait until your pupils look normal again, and then we can talk about what's next."

"David, that takes like twenty-four hours," she cried. "We don't have that kind of time!"

"Martha, I'm not having you..."

"Simm is endangering himself and others!"

"Martha..."

"We cannot let him do this! We have to find a way out of here!" She began to stand up, feeling dizzy as she did so.

He pulled her back down. "Stop moving. You are not well."

"Doctor!"

"Listen!" he yelled. "We don't have a choice! The car is gone, our mobiles are gone. Even if we _could_ break out of here, we'll have to walk somewhere to get help, and we don't know – that could be miles. I'm not doing that as long as you have concussion. Now, I am your physician, and you need to listen to me. Calm down, and give yourself time to heal!"

It was the first time she'd heard David raise his voice. She noticed with curiosity that the Scottish accent diminished, the more worked-up he became.

She also noted that high emotions had caused her to slip and call him "Doctor." She had to remember to stay calm. So she relented, and changed the subject.

"What happened to your accent?"

"How do you mean?"

"Erm, it sort of... went away for a moment while you were yelling.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell. It's just... it's a tense situation."

"No, it's okay," she said. "Just curious is all."

So now that they had nothing but time, and nothing to do but talk, and a mightily large predicament that might require some superhuman ingenuity, Martha thought this might be a good time to set about bringing out the Doctor. They _had _to get back to London, and clearly, David had no sense of urgency beyond the fact that he was currently locked inside an abandoned petrol station somewhere in the country.

It was getting dark, but this was no time for resting. She lit a candle and set it on the floor, hoping it would give them a campfire sort of feel, something that would encourage them both to express themselves. She scooted over to the wall and sat with her back against it. "You know, I read somewhere that highly emotional responses cause a native accent to emerge, even among well-practised people."

He furrowed. "Well-practised?"

"Or, you know, those who aren't sure of their origins," she offered, not looking at him.

He smiled sceptically, and scooted over to sit beside her. "Are you saying you think I might not be Scottish?"

"Maybe," she said. "I mean, you said your birth certificate was lost. Maybe you lived somewhere else during your language-acquisition years."

"Well, I didn't hear anything different," he told her. "I think you're imagining things, Martha Jones."

"No, no," she insisted. "I heard it. I'm very keen on accents. In fact, I think I heard a touch of..."

"A touch of what?"

Her heart pounded in anticipation of what she was about to say. But she couldn't wait anymore; she had to bring in the big guns now. "A touch of Gallifrey."

He stared at her for a long moment without reacting. Then he asked, "Gallifrey. I've heard of that."

"Yes," she said. "I think that's where you're from. I think it's buried back there in your subconscious, you just need to search, go deep within yourself, and you'll be able to access it." She tried to keep her tone light to avoid alerting him, but poignant so that he might listen.

He thought. "Where is it?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "But I've heard it's beautiful. Have you ever heard of Solace and Solitude? I think those are the names of some hills nearby."

He was thinking harder. "Is it an island? I'm thinking... I'm thinking that I heard it somewhere... and it was out there all by itself..."

"I think it's gone now," Martha told him, solemnly.

"Yes," he said. "I was just going to say that. It seems like it's gone, like it was destroyed somehow... You really think I might have been there when I was a little boy?"

"I'm just telling you what I heard," she told him.

"Wow," he sighed. "You must have a very good ear for accents."

"Well, I've travelled a lot. All over."

"Yeah? Like in your gap year?"

"No, it was... well, just before the coma, I guess."

"On your own?"

She sniffed sadly. "No, I travelled with a friend." She looked at him, searching. "He seems to be gone now. But I'll see him again."

He smiled. "An old flame, perhaps?"

"Alas, no," she told him. "Much as I would have liked that."

"Oh, that's the worst," he exclaimed. "When you fancy someone and they don't notice!"

"I didn't say he didn't notice."

"Well, I assumed. I mean, travelling in close quarters..." He trailed off, contemplating again.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing," he assured her, unconvincingly. He was distracted. "It's just... I think that must have happened to someone I know, because it's the weirdest feeling of déjà vu."

She didn't know what to say. So she spoke about the obvious. "The sun has gone down."

"It has," he said. "Lucky she left us some candles."

"She?"

"Well, they're scented with lavender and hydrangea. I'm thinking Professor Simm is more of an unscented-candle sort of bloke."

She giggled. "Probably true. Billie did a nice job stitching me up, in that case."

"Well, she'd have had to have help," he thought aloud. "I'm a thin man, but I'm still too heavy for her to carry."

"Great. An _unknown_ accomplice. I can't wait to get back to London."

"Let's not think about it for now," he said. "We can't do anything until at least tomorrow morning, so don't worry about it. Why don't you finish telling me about your friend?"

"All right. Well... he bought a car for the trip. It was big blue thing with this really spacious interior. We lived in it," she said before she'd thought about how daft it sounded.

"You lived in the car?"

She laughed. "Well, yeah, I guess we did."

He leaned in closer to her, their arms pressed together, like when they were at the auction. "And you fancied this man?" he asked, as though it were a secret.

She gazed back, and sighed with the weight of all that he was asking. It took her a long time to answer. Funny how the mind wanders in moments like this – she noticed that in the candle light, her shoes made shadows on the wall that looked like two hills strung together by a valley. "Oh, I didn't just fancy him. I was... in love with him. Hopelessly."

"What was he like?"

"Oh, David," she said, nearly sobbing out the words. "You don't know what you're asking of me."

"Well, Martha, if we can't talk about the painful things, how are we expected to get past them?" he asked her.

She sighed heavily again, and looked at David closely. Her voice wavering with emotion, she told him, "He's tall. He has brown hair. He's clever... _my God_ is he clever – like make-the-universe-collapse sort of clever." She paused, looking away from David and into the fire. "And he is constantly lonely. No matter how many friends in his life, no matter how many people love him, he is so, so lonely."

He was staring at her, looking at the little flame playing across her face. "What a sad existence. I can kind of relate."

"Yeah," she whispered. "But, oh, what a great man to have in a crisis. Any trap, any disaster... he always took care of me."

He was still staring closely. "Get trapped a lot, did you?"

"Sometimes."

"Like we are now?" He leaned his head in closer.

"Sometimes."

"And he took care of you?"

She smiled discreetly. "Always."

"Well, then, I have a lot to live up to."

"You do," she whispered. "But you will find it, David. I'm going to help you find him..."

And then suddenly her words were stopped, and he was kissing her. He turned his body to face her and used his good arm to cradle her face in his hand. She turned to face him as well, but her mind was much less sure than her actions demonstrated. She was shaking, thinking of Tom, thinking of Rose, thinking of the warnings her mum and Catherine had given...

When he pulled away from her, he didn't take his hand away from her face, but asked quite calmly, "Shall I stop?"

Thoughts raced through her brain so quickly, she was sure that David could see them flying by when he looked into her eyes. No matter what she said next, either way, all open conversation was over for the night. Either way, daylight would be awkward.

It would have been madness to say "no," though. She wanted to stay faithful to Tom, she wanted her working relationship with both David and the Doctor to remain intact, she wanted to keep her wits about her. But what the mind desires sometimes must take a back seat to what the heart and body need.

And not for the first time in this existence, Martha let her heart be her guide.


	14. Chapter 14

FOURTEEN

John had been asleep when the phone rang. He glanced at the clock and grimaced. Who the hell was calling at five in the morning?

"Hello?"

"John? It's Francine Jones," she said frantically. "Something's happened to Martha."

"What do you mean _something's happened_?" he asked, sitting up in bed.

"I mean she went off with that _professor_ yesterday morning, promising she'd be back in a few hours' time, and she still hasn't come back. It's been twenty-one hours, John, what do I do?"

"What professor?" he asked. "The one she's assisting?"

"Yes," she told him. "They were going to some auction."

"Yeah, I've met the guy," he said. "He said he collects police memorabilia – he probably went looking for an antique badge holder or something."

"Police memorabilia? Ironic since he might have just murdered my daughter."

"He didn't murder your daughter, Francine," John sighed. "They probably just broke down somewhere."

"And they couldn't ring? In twenty-one hours, they couldn't make a phone call? Martha carries _two_ mobile phones now, thanks to him. What, both of them are out of batteries? And he doesn't have some way to get in touch? Come on, John, something is wrong!"

"All right, all right. Why did you call me instead of the police?"

"The police wouldn't even talk to me until she's been missing for 24 hours. That would be tonight. I can't wait that long. And you're the only person I can think of that Martha confides in... has she told you anything at all that can help?"

"Not anything that would help with this sort of thing," he said.

Francine started to sob. John could hear Clive on her end saying, "It's all right, love. Please don't cry."

"John," she begged through tears. "Please help us."

"Okay," he sighed. "I'll go over to the university and see what I can find out. I'll call you back when I find anything."

* * *

John sat in the bagel shop across from the medical school waiting for seven o'clock to come. He'd already phoned a friend in the police department. Without knowing David's surname, there was nothing he could look up, and there had been no reports of accidents in a silver car matching the description Francine had given him. So, he'd called David's office, and the outgoing message had Catherine's voice saying the office opens at seven.

And now, he waited with his Honey Nut cream cheese on toasted cranberry bagel, and his second large cup of coffee.

At 6:50, he headed across the street. As he approached the lift on the first floor, Catherine entered the building through the door opposite.

"Hi!" she said warmly. "John, was it?"

"Yes, hello," he said, shaking her hand. "Catherine, right?"

"Yeah. What brings you here?" she asked, hitting the button for the lift.

"Actually I'm here to talk to you."

"Me? Why me?"

"Have you heard from Martha or David in the last 24 hours?"

"I spoke to David yesterday around noon," she told him. "But that was the last time."

"Well, Martha's mother is frantic because Martha promised to be back home last night sometime, and as of five this morning, there was still no sign. I don't suppose you know anything."

Catherine looked at him with a furrowed brow, and he didn't like it.

"What?" he asked.

"I rang him yesterday to say that this nutty professor here was planning on demonstrating this apparatus of his," Catherine explained. "It's supposed to happen this morning, and David has been very vocal about the fact that he disapproves."

John crossed his arms across his chest defensively. "Are you telling me you think they were kidnapped by another professor?"

"I wouldn't put it past him," Catherine told John as the lift door opened. The two of them stepped inside.

"Hold the lift, please!" they heard, just before the doors began to close. John reached one hand out and stopped them. A short, ruddy man in a tweed blazer entered the lift with them.

"Good morning," Catherine said, pressing the button labelled 5. "We're going to five. You?"

"Actually, I'm not sure," he said. "I'm looking for a specific professor, but I don't know what floor he's on. He's David... something. I'm sorry I'm not sure of his surname. His assistant is Martha Jones."

"Oh, that's us," Catherine said. "I work for David. I'm Catherine. But he seems to be indisposed at the moment."

"Blimey," the man mumbled.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" she asked.

"Oh, where are my manners? I'm Dr. Ivan Finbury, from Canterbury Christ Church University in East Kent. Miss Jones left me a message saying that Professor Simm was planning to deploy his Augmenter today and I came to help them... I don't know what, exactly."

John introduced himself. "Both David and Martha seem to have gone missing. We're trying to work it out now."

"Missing?" he asked, looking from one to the other nervously. "Missing?"

"Yes," Catherine said. "Martha promised her mum she'd be home last night, and no one's heard from either one of them since noon yesterday."

They all stepped off the lift and into the office. "Oh, that is most definitely not good," Finbury said, wringing his hands as he followed the other two through the doors.

"What makes you say that?" John asked.

"Simm is working with one of my colleagues Dr. Matthew Oliver. He is a ruthless man. He's greedy and power-hungry and he'll do anything to ensure his own advancement. He's currently under investigation for laundering the money that we used to research the device. Fortunately, the rest of our names were cleared, but Oliver..."

"Money laundering is a far cry from kidnapping or murder or whatever you folks are thinking here," John assured them. "Let's just be rational."

"Okay," Catherine said. "The police won't do anything until 24 has passed since the time when Martha said she'd be back. And perhaps not even until 24 hours from _now_ when they were both due here in the office. So we'll have to find them ourselves if we want them back before..."

"Let's just forget about Professor Simm right now," John suggested. "Let's just worry about getting our friends back, okay?"

"Quite right," Finbury said. "Their lives are more important than stopping Simm and Oliver."

John liked this man.

"Do you know where they went, Catherine?" John asked.

"When I spoke to him, he said they were in Oxford," Catherine said. "Probably they're somewhere between here and there."

"Well, should we start with the M40 or one of the B roads?" Finbury wondered. "There's more than one way to get from London to Oxford and back."

"Damn, I wish I were a detective," John said. "I really suck at this kind of thing."

"Well, here's a thought," Finbury offered. "If we assume that Simm and Oliver had something to do with the disappearance, then we can also assume that they had help, right? Does Simm have an assistant?"

"Yes," Catherine said. "Her name is Billie."

"Can she be reasoned with?"

"I don't know," Catherine said doubtfully. "She's very, very..._very _loyal. Do you know what I'm saying?"

Finbury scrunched up his nose. "Er, yes. But still – if she's got any sense of decency..."

"Worth a shot," John announced. "Catherine, lead the way."

"All right, if you say so."

The three of them trouped down the hall, around several corners and down more halls. They found the Medical Humanities office open, and Billie standing in the doorway of one of the offices, reading something off a clipboard.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"Maybe," Catherine said. "David and his assistant have gone missing. Know anything about that?"

Billie smiled sweetly. "What would make you think I'd know anything about that?"

"Oh, I don't know," Catherine said, one hand on her hip. "Maybe because your friend Simm is planning on demoing something this morning that everyone knows David didn't approve of, and it would be an awfully big coincidence if David and Martha went missing this morning and Simm had nothing to do with it."

"I don't know what you're talking about, and I resent the accusation," Billie answered evenly. "I'm taking this straight to Professor Simm, and he'll take it straight to the Deans."

"Look girlie," Catherine yelled, taking two menacing steps forward. "Two very good people are gone. Two of _my _friends! And I know about your _relationship_ with Professor Simm, so unless you want both of you booted from this institution tomorrow, I suggest you open that pretty mouth of yours and start bloody talking!"

John stepped forward and took Catherine gently by the shoulders. "Catherine, Catherine, this isn't the way," he whispered. "Ever hear that expression about catching flies with honey?" He pushed her back gently, away from Billie.

He turned to the blonde, whose eyes were wide as saucers now. He spoke evenly. "Billie, is it? Listen, sweetheart, we're not here to threaten you. Not really. But two innocent people are missing. We're not saying you're responsible, but depending on what's happened, they could die. They could be stranded in the middle of nowhere, they could be bleeding – we just don't know. All we're asking is that if you know anything, you tell us. All right?"

Billie stared back at him with steely resolve for a few minutes. Then, quietly but emphatically, she said, "I'm sorry, I can't tell you anything. I suggest you begin looking for them on your own."

John, Catherine and Finbury simply sighed.

"Fine," John said quietly, turning to his new friends. "Square one. We take separate cars onto separate roads and try our luck."

As they turned to leave, as an afterthought, Billie said to them, "Make sure you've got enough petrol."

"Excuse me?" John asked.

She did not respond nor repeat herself, she simply glared back at him unwaveringly. Meaningfully.

Finally, John simply said, "Thank you for the advice."

As they headed toward the car park, they ran into Professor Simm in the hallway. Finbury tried to hide his face discreetly by looking down at the floor. They exchanged tight, uncomfortable hellos, and kept on moving.

* * *

Billie's heart raced. When Professor Simm entered, she jumped a little.

"What's wrong, love?" he asked, running two fingers silkily up and down her cheek. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"Nothing, just the stress of today," she assured him nervously.

"What was Dr. Finbury doing here? And why was he with Catherine?" he asked her, still stroking her cheek.

"Don't worry, they don't know anything," she told him. "They haven't even noticed he's gone yet."

"Good," he said, before kissing her heartily.

She trembled, but the good news was that as long as he was kissing her, he couldn't read her face. She'd committed a serious crime by sabotaging a vehicle, kidnapping the unconscious bodies, concealing the wreck, _and_ she had involved two fellow students whom she considered friends. But almost worse than that, she had gone back later and defied Professor Simm by leaving behind provisions for David and Martha, then she'd given Catherine a clue to help find them and lied to the Professor about it. She wasn't sure if she was more frightened of the prison time or of Simm's wrath. She hoped that her feminine charms would get her through the week....


	15. Chapter 15

**THIS IS KIND OF A WEIRD CHAPTER. BUT IN THE ABSENCE OF A SONIC SCREWDRIVER, I FELT I HAD TO EXPLAIN HOW OUR HEROES ESCAPE... I COULDN'T JUST CUT TO THEM RUNNING DOWN THE ROAD. THAT WOULD BE A COP-OUT! ANYHOW, I HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS SCENE, AND THE LITTLE CLIFFHANGER AT THE END...**

* * *

FIFTEEN

The night was like none other. Rain and hail, a leaky roof. Shadows dancing on bare, beaten, abandoned walls. Cold concrete against her back, pain and fear pooling in her stomach, yet pleasure flowing through her like water through a sieve. Warmth washing over her at intervals, a familiar face expressing itself in unfamiliar ways. Brown eyes she loved, now reciprocating, and tightening with the pleasure. Her shoulder blades ached as they pressed hard into the concrete and her body arched her into an unlikely moment of bliss, towing him along after her. And then a sense of peace in this environment where nothing was right.

The talking began again, lying on the floor under a rain poncho, listening to the beating outside. Orange light coaxed a few secrets out of each of them. She stopped manoeuvring and simply allowed herself to speak freely. Before long, the talking dissipated once more, warmth enveloped them, and again the concrete floor insisted against her body. Her knees stung against the unyielding surface, but the slow burn at her core would not allow her to stop. She moved on him rhythmically, as though the thrumming outside was stringing her along. He gazed up at her with abandon, entranced by her movements. At last she leaned forward and grasped his shoulders, whispered her feelings to him, and they both shuddered, then relaxed.

Sleep took them not long after, and nothing was left except for the morning.

And then there was waking again to strange things. This time, mostly pain. Pain and sweat.

_Anti-inflammatories. Pain-killers. Yes. Must move._

Daylight was coming through in between the loose slats of wood in the ceiling, and leaking into small crooks and holes in the boards where windows used to be. They had no clock and the light coming in was good old English grey, so she wasn't able to tell the time. She hoped it was still early in the day, hoped there was still time to get back to London.

She stirred.

"You need drugs," he told her. "It's been at least six hours."

"Yeah," she groaned. "Oh, this does not feel good."

"Okay, okay," he said gently. "I'm going to get them, don't let your head hit the floor too hard, all right?"

She felt him move, and as he sat up, his left arm was necessarily extracted from underneath her head. She was able to use what was left of her neck muscles to stop it hitting the concrete floor. She thought she heard the rustle of clothing, and then distinctly heard the rattle of medicine in a plastic bottle.

"Okay, up you come," he said. His hand came up underneath her head and guided her up into a sitting position. David, clad now in his jeans, had three pills in his hand, and handed them to her. Then he handed her the jug of water. "Sorry. All we've got."

She carefully poured a bit of water into her mouth, spilling a bit. She chuckled. "Lucky for the rain gear."

She was referring to the red plastic rain poncho currently spread over her, keeping the water from falling onto awkward places. Underneath, she wasn't wearing a stitch, and she was acutely aware of the fact. She secured the plastic sheet under her arms modestly.

"Indeed," he said, smiling at her. "All right?"

"Well, my head is as good as can be expected," she answered.

"And the rest of you?" His face registered concern now, and she knew he was asking about last night.

"The rest of me feels very relaxed," she said, sheepishly, and clumsily avoiding the question.

He blushed, and rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. "Thanks," he told her. "But that's not what I meant."

"I know."

"Listen, Martha," he said. "What we did... it might have been completely inappropriate, but I have to tell you something."

"What?"

"I really needed it," he blurted. "Not... I mean... not just because it's been a very long time, but because I... I was a lot more tense last night than I let on. I was terrified, really. And I just need to say thank you for being such a great comfort to me."

"My pleasure," she said.

"And I know we've just met this past week," he said, rubbing his neck again. "Not to mention, you're my assistant, and you know how people talk."

"I know," she said. "We can't carry on, I know."

He looked at her, pained. "But I want to."

"We can't," she said. "It's just wrong."

He moved closer to her and cradled her face again, as though he might kiss her. "Martha," he whispered. "I'm not like other men, you've probably worked that out."

"Er, yeah."

"I don't just _have_ experiences like this. I can't just do this once with someone..."

"Twice," she corrected.

He smiled. "Okay, twice... with someone, and then forget about it."

"I can't either," she told him, tears beginning to fall. "But oh... David, it was such a mistake! If only you understood how big." She looked at him pleadingly.

"I do understand," he insisted. He didn't, she knew it, but she didn't argue. "But I don't care. You don't have to remain my assistant after this business with Simm, and then..."

"What?"

"I... God, it just felt so good to be close to you," he told her, taking her face in both hands. "There's something... from the moment I met you."

"I know," she said, still crying a bit. She knew he was accessing a memory that he couldn't understand, and was interpreting it as a kindred connection, or some sort of inherent specialness on her part, maybe even the beginnings of love. But soon 'David' would be gone, and all of that would go with him. Suddenly, she felt immeasurably guilty for taking advantage, leading David on and taking what she wanted from him. Yes, he gave it willingly, but he did not understand the repercussions as she did.

"And I've been on my own too long," he continued. "I've loved being with you this past week, I've loved the trust, the sharing, and... oh, the sex." He grabbed both her hands and held them to his chest. "Didn't you feel it last night, Martha? I think you were sent to me to show me how to live again, to help me find what I've been missing. Please help me live again."

Her heart broke at this. She held onto his hands tightly, kissed them. "David, I felt it. I felt it everywhere. And you do not know how badly I would love just to say 'okay, let's give it a go.' In a way, I feel like I've been waiting years for this. I have loved this past week as well. I too have loved the trust and the sharing and..." she sighed. "Oh, the sex. But it's too fast. We just were caught in the moment last night, with the danger and all. Please, can you give me some time?"

He smiled, betraying worry. "Of course. I don't want to put pressure on you. I just think you... we... this could..."

"I think so too, but things are really complicated right now." She leaned in to kiss him briefly, then asked, "Shall we try and find a way out of here?"

"Good idea."

"Can you please hand me my clothes?" she asked with a sweet smile.

He chuckled. "Sure." He gathered them up and tossed them to her. As he climbed into his own maroon tee-shirt and shoes, he said, "I'm going to check and see if there is any ductwork in the toilet cubicle. Maybe it will prove a way out."

Martha stood up and pulled on her pants, jeans, bra, tee shirt and boots. She tied her jumper around her waist and followed David into the loo.

"Any luck?" she asked.

"No," he said, standing on the commode with his head in the grate in the ceiling. "It's all collapsed."

"Damn."

"I was thinking that too," he said, jumping down onto the tile floor. "But then I remembered something that I saw yesterday while you were sleeping..."

He disappeared through a door, and returned with a funny-looking, rusty, metal device. She smiled at at least a million memories of the Doctor emerging from somewhere with some kind of apparatus that she couldn't identify.

"What the hell is that?" she wanted to know.

"It's a jack," he said. "I guess that room back there was the repair garage."

He headed for the boarded-up windows, and began looking for a little gap. He found one on the side of the building, and shoved the tweezer-like ends of the lifting device in the gap. On the other end, there was a ring that seemed to turn and spread the two arms apart. If they could crank hard enough and spread the big metal arms, perhaps they could pry the boards off.

"Can you find something to help us turn this ring?" he asked.

"Er, I'll do my best," she answered as he shoved harder.

She grabbed a matchbook and went into the dark room in the back. She cast about for something strong. She looked up and saw some lead piping leading from a hole above into a hole in the floor. One of the elbow pieces was missing toward the top, and she wondered if she could break it loose. She blew out her match, as it was burning her fingers.

"David, can you come help me?"

He appeared in the doorway a few seconds later. "What did you find?"

She lit another match and pointed up. "There's a cinderblock there," she said, indicating something she had seen in the corner. She blew out the match and went and heaved the block into her arms.

"Why don't you let me do that?"

"Because it's at least eight feet up, and you're tall, but not that tall. Lift me. Can you do that with your dislocated elbow?"

"Oh, I think so."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm pretty sure it wasn't dislocated, it just hurt for a while."

"How can you be sure?"

"Erm, Martha, do you remember what I was doing seven hours ago? It required the use of my elbow, and all of my joints. I can do this." he asked. It was dark, he didn't see her blush at the memory.

He put his arms around her knees and lifted. She held the cinderblock over her head and slammed it against the pipe as hard as she could. Unfortunately, she lost control of it and dropped it.

"Oh God, I'm sorry," she shrieked. "Did I get you?"

"No, no, just my shoulder," he winced. "If my elbow wasn't dislocated, my shoulder may now be." He let go of her and she landed with a thud on her feet.

She felt his shoulder in the dark, found nothing out of place. "Can you do it again?"

"Yeah."

They tried again, only this time, Martha held on tight. After the eighth bash, she could hear the pipe bang against the block wall behind, which meant it was coming loose. "Okay, I need a break," Martha said, panting. "That thing weighs a ton. Why don't I lift you, and you can do the bashing, eh?"

He chuckled. "I would if I could, love."

After a brief rest, they tried again. This time, on bash number ten, the pipe came loose enough that David could work from a standing position. David picked up the block and gave it three good hard heaves at the crux, right where the pipe connected with another pipe, and they finally heard it come loose and hit the floor.

"We are _such_ a team," he commented happily.

He picked up the pipe and strode back into the main room, boarded up and still leaky. As they got closer to the jack, David groaned, "Martha, I don't know about this."

"Ugh, you're right," she said. "It's not going to fit, is it?"

He tried putting the pipe through the ring that operated the jack.

It didn't fit. "Oh no!" she cried out. In despair, she fell against David and buried her face in his arm.

He put the arm around her, and with a bit of a laugh, patted her head. "It's okay, it's okay. Because now we have a lead pipe."

"Why is that important?" she asked his chest.

"It's heavier than wood."

It took her a moment, but eventually, she looked up at him, and found him smiling down. "Oh," she said. "I see."

She pulled herself away. David took the lead pipe in both hands and held it under his right arm like a battering ram. "Pray for me," he said. With that, he crashed into the already very slightly loosened wooden board. It loosened just a bit.

Martha got excited. She jumped up and clapped her hands. "Oh! It's working, do it again!"

He did it again. The board came a bit looser.

After four, Martha jumped in and grabbed the jack. "Let me help," she said. She began chipping away at the board by swinging the jack like a Cricket bat. Wood chips flew everywhere, and daylight began to show at the bottom of the board. They both cheered. This whacking and battering was cathartic for both of them, and when the board finally gave way enough to let a person through, Martha thought she might weep with happiness.

She gathered all the provisions back together in the backpack, including the ones left to them. They now had rain gear, some food, painkillers and matches. As far as having enough to get them to the next town, Martha figured this wasn't bad. But something occurred to her. Professor Simm's minions had sabotaged them once – there was nothing that said he wouldn't send someone out to attack them if they escaped. "I think we should bring the pipe with us. For protection."

He brought it over to the checkout counter and helped Martha fit the pipe into her pack. It stuck out the top, but at least they had something to fight back with, if the need arose. David carried the bag to the loosened board and held it open, dropping the sack outside. Then he held it open for Martha, and she crawled through it, never more glad to greet a cloudy morning. David came out clumsily just after. They hugged with jubilation, and then David slung the pack over both shoulders.

They looked around them. "Which way is the road?" asked Martha. "It's just grass everywhere, it all looks the same from here."

"I don't know, let's have a look round this way."

He led the way toward the back side of the petrol station. When he looked around the corner, something stopped him in his tracks. He stood staring, his mouth open, stunned speechless.


	16. Chapter 16

**SORRY FOR THE LONGISH ABSENCE. I'M BACK NOW, AND THE STORY WILL BEGIN WINDING DOWN SOON... STAY TUNED FOR THE EXCITING CONCLUSION IN THE NEXT FEW CHAPTERS!**

* * *

SIXTEEN

"What, David?"

He wouldn't reply. He just stood, dumbfounded, staring into the space behind the small building at something Martha could not see.

"David, talk to me. What is it?"

"Martha," he whispered. And then he disappeared behind the building. Martha followed. When she peeked round the corner, she gasped.

David was circling, running his hands up and down its outsides, looking up, feeling the wood, examining its body. It was a blue 1960's Police Public Call Box. Its paint was chipped and faded, and its sign across the top was shattered and unreadable. The windows were broken and their empty sockets were filled in with cobwebs. This was a genuine call box, not a time-travel device, Martha could see that. Time was, Britain was dotted with them, but they had been taken up since then and discontinued. This one survived behind an abandoned station, invisible from any road.

She had a million questions and hadn't the slightest idea where to begin asking. If she could even fathom skimming the edges of the Doctor's mind, she might have a fighting chance, but as it was, she stood silent. She had no idea now if she was dealing with David or the Doctor, with a professor or a Time Lord. With a new lover or her old friend. She simply silently willed him to speak.

For a long time, he kept her in suspense. He walked around it, sometimes touching it, sometimes not. Sometimes he closed his eyes and just felt it. He ran his fingers carefully over the white, faded usage sign on the outside, and seemed to read the directions. He crouched down and inspected the place where the wood met the grass. Over and over, he did these things, never speaking, never betraying any specific emotion or thought.

Finally, when she couldn't take it any longer, she begged, "David, please say something."

With one hand on the box, he closed his eyes. A pause, and then, in an English accent, he said, "David is not my name, is it?"

She sighed. "No. It's not."

"Then what is it?"

"I'm not sure."

He patted the wood gently with his fingers. "This means something."

"Yes, it does," she said. "Do you know what it's called?"

"It's on the edge of my mind," he told her, eyes still shut. "Like when you're trying to remember the name of a friend you haven't seen in years. It's right there..." He indicated his temples with frustration.

He opened his eyes. "And you," he said, suddenly pointing at her. "I know you. I mean, from before. I've known you for years."

"Yes, you have," she admitted. She was trying to remain calm, trying to let the memories come back to him, rather than giving him more to chew.

Suddenly, from in the distance, she heard her name. She stepped over so that she could see the front side of the building. She saw John approaching, apparently from a dirt road, calling her name.

She waved him over. He broke into a run.

When he arrived, he saw that Martha looked exhausted and David looked confused. First things first, though. "Are you two all right?"

"Yes, we're fine," Martha told him. "We've been locked up..."

"...in a petrol station," John finished for her. "I know."

"How did you know where to find us?" she wondered.

"Billie tipped me off," he told her.

"She did?"

"Well, sort of. We knew you'd been somewhere between London and Oxford, and she told us to make sure we had enough petrol. It was a really off-the-wall comment, so I sent the troops out looking for abandoned petrol stations. It's all we had to go on – at least it gave us something to aim for."

"Billie," David mused. "God, I know her too."

Martha groaned. "Yeah, you know her too. Look, are you going to be okay?" she asked him. "Because we still have to get back to London and stop the Master."

"The Master," he replied absently, with no hint that he had any sense of urgency. "That's Simm. The Master. Why do I know this?"

"Because you're not David, and you're not a professor," she told him, grabbing his arms and forcing him to face her. "You're someone else entirely. But I need to know that you're on my side today, Doctor."

He looked at her quizzically. "Of course I'm on your side. Why wouldn't I be?" He crossed to her and took her hands. He gazed into her eyes with worry. Martha noted that if Captain Jack were himself, he would immediately know what had happened between them, as a result of this one look.

"You always are," she sighed. "But you're not yourself today. Let's just go with John, okay? We can talk about it on the way back."

He turned and looked at the police box as though he didn't want to leave it. He let go of Martha's hands, and touched it for a few seconds longer, and as he did, John looked at Martha, and mouthed the words, "What the hell?"

"Long story," she mouthed back. John accepted this and turned his attention back to the man he knew as David.

"Doctor," she said to him. She took the hand touching the box and pulled it gently away. She squeezed it. "We have to go. Rose needs our help. She's trapped."

He shut his eyes tight. "Rose," he whispered. He allowed Martha to lead him by the hand as John showed the way back to the car.

They crossed a field and shortly arrived at a barely-paved road where a car was parked. When they arrived, someone was already sitting in the driver's seat. It was Raj.

"How'd you find him?" she asked John.

"He found me," John answered. "I ran into him near David's office. He said he was your friend, been trying to get hold of you and when he couldn't, he decided to come up to the office to find you. I told him what I knew, and he offered to drive with me."

Oh, things were about to get complicated. And really weird. This bloke could make "David's" mind blow up.

Raj rolled down the window and called out, "All right?"

"Yeah," Martha called. "We're fine, I think. Just a bit of cabin fever."

She opened the door to the backseat and crawled through to the other side, and the Doctor followed. He didn't let go of her hand, as though if he did, he'd lose whatever semblance of recognition he was now tenuously grasping. Raj turned around in his seat. "How are things?" he asked Martha, meaningfully.

"Starting to come back to normal," she told him. "John, who else is out looking for us?"

"Oh, you're right," he said, pulling out his mobile as the car began to move. "I'd better let Catherine know we found you guys."

"No don't!" the Doctor cried out suddenly.

"Excuse me?" John asked.

"Don't involve her any further. She can't know..."

"She's going to want to know you're safe, David," John insisted.

"No!" the Doctor yelled back. "Don't tell her anymore. She's out of this. She won't be able to handle it."

"Martha..." John began to appeal to her.

"If he says she can't handle it, then she can't handle it. Put the phone away, John," she told him with an authoritative tone that made him immediately retreat.

"What about your mum?" John asked.

"Doctor?" asked Martha.

"Fine," he said. "Call her mum. Once we're back in London, but not before."

Martha sat back in her seat and studied the man next to her, holding her hand, breathing hard, furrowing his brow. "Doctor, tell me what you're thinking."

"Impossible things," he answered without looking at her. "Like my whole life has been a lie."

"Your life as a Scottish M.D. named David who teaches Hippocratic theory at a medical school in London is a lie," she said bluntly. "What else is in there, Doctor? What do you know that's not a lie?"

He shut his eyes tight. "Gallifrey is not a lie," he whispered. "It's gone. Burned."

"Good. What else?"

"The police box is not a lie," he continued. "But it's not a police box, it's something else."

"Good, good! Keep going. What else is in there?"

"Rose," he said.

"Good, Rose," she encouraged. "Who is she?"

He didn't answer for a while, then said, "I think... I loved her? But she went away somehow."

"Yes! What does she look like?"

"Billie," he said. "She looks like Billie."

"What does he mean she looks like Billie?" John said, turning abruptly.

The Doctor's eyes flew open and looked straight at John. In a disbelieving, husky voice, he growled, "Jack."

John looked at Martha with surprise. Clearly, he'd remembered her calling him Jack in the early days of their friendship.

"Captain Jack Harkness," the Doctor whispered slowly.

John just gaped at him.

Raj smiled, and whispered, "Martha, you're a genius."

"It wasn't me," she whispered back. "It was the box."

"It was you," he insisted.

"You were a Time Agent, born in the 53rd century," the Doctor told him, creepily never blinking. "I met you in a war. There were people in gas masks, and you saved us from a bomb. But I looked different then."

"I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about," John told him. "Raj, maybe you should head towards a hospital."

"I've got a destination in mind," Raj told him.

John looked at everyone in the car as though they had all lost their minds.

The Doctor shut his eyes again. "Catherine..." he whispered.

"Do you know her real name?" Martha asked, resuming her game.

A long pause ensued, and finally, "Donna," came out. "Donna Noble?"

"Good, Doctor," Martha smiled. "That's no lie."

"Rose Tyler," he said. "She was a shopgirl. Donna Noble... a temp. Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood. Real names, real lives. Billie and Catherine and John are lies."

"Yes."

"But you," he said, opening his eyes. "You are not a lie, Martha Jones. You've always been Martha Jones."

"Yes," she repeated.

"You've always been a medical student... a doctor. You're a doctor. That's not a lie."

"No, it's not."

He opened his eyes again. Tears were forming in them. "I love you," he said. "That's not a lie."

"Whoa," she said, holding her free hand out. "You've got your wires crossed again."

"No, I haven't," he said.

"Yes, you have," she insisted. "David loved me. Or maybe he thought he did. You... never."

"No, Martha. I'm starting to see the truth, see the world, the universe for truth and lies, stasis and flux, the possibilities and what can never be. It's all coming into focus. I know what I know... it's the burden of..."

A long pause. Martha's heart was beating hard and fast, her entire body on-edge. "The burden of what, Doctor?"

"The burden of a Time Lord."

The car was dead silent, except for Raj exhaling the word "Halleluia." Martha and the Doctor were weeping together silently, John was still looking from one to the other like they were playing the most bizarre tennis match ever.

Suddenly, Raj cried out, "Hold on, kids!"

He turned the car abruptly to the left and took it into a field behind a row of houses just outside the city.


	17. Chapter 17

**OH, I THINK YOU'RE GOING TO LIKE THIS CHAPTER. THERE'S A BIT OF QUITE DELICIOUS MUSHINESS...**

* * *

SEVENTEEN

"Er, there's a road, like, right there!" John protested. "You're going to destroy the suspension!"

"Where we're going, we don't need roads," Raj told him, mysteriously. "That's from a film. Humans like films, don't they?"

"Humans?" John asked, now visibly frightened.

Raj chose not to comment, but rather to press ahead into an open field. He was driving like a maniac now, and pulled in behind a large boulder, and that's when they saw it. When the car screeched to a halt, everyone exited the car and looked... the only person surprised was John.

A large metal saucer sat on the field, the approximate height and width of a red double-decker bus, but Martha could not see the depth.

"What is that?" John asked.

"It's a spaceship," Raj told him. "I wish you'd keep up."

He stepped backward. "I'm not going in there."

Raj sighed. "John, I'm sorry. I know this is weird for you, but we're going to need your help. And when it all straightens out, you're going to be sorry that you didn't come with us."

"I'll take my chances. Can I please have my car keys back?"

"Sorry," Raj said. "You're coming with us."

"Martha," he cried out. "You're not in on this are you?"

"I'm afraid I am," she told him. "But it will all make sense soon, I promise. Even if you don't trust Raj, you know you can trust me."

But before John had a chance to respond, the Doctor grabbed him by the arm and began dragging him toward the spaceship. "Come on," he said. "I'm still a bit confused too, but I can feel everything falling into place, and you're part of the puzzle, Jack."

John didn't respond, he just went along gaping at the crazy people around him.

The Doctor caught sight of himself as a reflection in the side of the ship. "Blimey, what am I wearing? Denim? Oh, for... we've got to do something."

Martha laughed. "When this is over, we'll stop at Harrod's and see if we can't get you back into your pinstripes."

"Yes, please!" he cried out.

Raj opened the door using a combination pad on the other side of a panel. "_Entrez-vous, mes amis_," he said, gesturing toward the entrance.

"You speak French?" Martha asked, passing by him.

"I speak all human languages," he answered. "Comes with the disguise. Cool, eh?"

They stepped inside. The interior was filled with blue light and an alien-looking control panel. She wasn't sure why they were there, but she was interested in finding out. It was something Martha had felt a hundred times with the Doctor by her side. Wonder, confusion, excitement and a total sense of _what the hell is this?_

"How do you feel?" she whispered to the Doctor.

He shrugged. "In awe, but not surprised. It's not too familiar yet..."

"Good. That makes two of us. John, how are you doing?"

"I think I'm going to throw up."

"All right," Martha sighed. "If nothing else, that lets us know exactly where things stand."

"Okay friends, strap yourselves in," Raj commanded. He sat down in one of four seats at what appeared to be the 'front' of the vehicle. "Make sure you apply the chin strap correctly. Well, Martha and John anyway. Humans get whiplash so easily."

Martha and John sat in the second row while the Doctor and Raj took their seats in front. They did as asked and applied their chin straps, and Raj verified that they were strapped in tight.

The spacecraft powered up slowly, and Martha's heart beat in her chest at a thousand miles an hour. She couldn't imagine what John must be feeling, if she was in this state!

And then it just stopped. The engine powered down just as it had come up, and the lights went out.

"Okay, don't panic," Raj said in the dark. Martha could hear plastic and metal clanging against each other, Raj grunted a few times, cursed, then a small torch light came on. He shined it at Martha and John. "All right? Sorry about that – I guess something's gone wrong."

The Doctor stood up and held out his hand for the torch. Surprised, Raj handed it to him.

"What does this thing run on?" the Doctor asked, running his hands across the top of the control panel. He put took his glasses seemingly out of nowhere and put them on.

"Stellar molecules," Raj told him.

The Doctor looked at him piercingly over the top of his frames. "Really?"

Raj covered. "But we're very careful not to strip mine," he assured him. "We follow all galactic protocols."

"Sheesh," John sighed. "This is frickin' ridiculous."

"I know," the Doctor said without looking at him, or really moving his lips. "But here we are. And I seem to know some things here.... ah! Here it is! Ha!" he cried out as he pulled a panel open.

"Do you know what's wrong?" Raj asked.

"I will do, in a moment, if you'll get out of my light," the Doctor told him.

"Sorry," Raj said, pulling back.

The Doctor was silent for a time, shining his light into the area behind the panel. Lights flashed, gauges moved, a screen spat information in a non-human language. Finally, the Doctor asked, "Did you change the internal venting mechanism to expel before you landed on this planet?" Then he turned to Martha. "What did I just say?"

"Don't look at me, I usually only understand about two thirds of what comes out of your mouth."

Raj's face registered terror. "No! I totally forgot! Oh, this is just great! I've got Earth grit corrupting my stellar fuel. Now this thing will never fly."

"Well, I don't think it's irreversible," the Doctor said, sitting back down in his chair. Again, he looked at Martha. "This would normally be one of those times when I'd begin flying all over the room and fixing things, wouldn't it?"

"Yep. And you'd be talking really fast. Maybe even yelling, but not in a mean way," Martha answered.

"Doctor, if it's not irreversible, then what do we do?" Raj asked.

"Stellar fuel... contaminated by grit..."

"Maybe there's some kind of purification device..."

"No, no," the Doctor said, grasping. "I think that's the wrong thinking. Besides, we only have what we have..."

"If we had the sonic, you could override it..."

"Raj, we only have what we have!"

"But still, Doctor, please think."

The Doctor was contemplative. Finally he put his head in his hands. "I don't know what to do next," he confessed. Then he looked at Martha, his eyes worried behind his smart specs.

"It's all right," she said. She leaned forward and stroked his hand. "You've had a lot of information thrown at you in one day.

"But I'm... I'm supposed to fix things," he said, staring at nothing, squinting. "Aren't I?"

"Doctor," Raj said, now sitting beside him. "I'm sorry. I didn't bring you here so you could fix my engine. If you can't do it, it's all right – your memory is just now coming back, no one expects you to be a super hero." He stood up. "I have another plan. John, can you help me please?"

"Er, sure," John agreed, and unstrapped himself before tentatively following Raj out of the craft.

The Doctor leaned back in his seat and sighed heavily. "It's in here, I know it is," he whispered to her. "It's like I need a password to access a secret file or something."

Martha leaned forward and slid her arms around his shoulders in a kind of embrace. "It will come," she whispered. "But now that you've got hold of some of your memories, you're expecting too much too fast. One thing is certain, though – your reaction right now is Vintage Doctor. He goes totally mental when he can't save the day."

He chuckled, and brought his hands up to hers, which were resting on his chest. He sighed again. "Martha, I don't know what I would have done without you."

"Raj could have brought the Doctor back," she told him. "He's the one who knew how to do it – I was just following his plan."

"If that were true, then he would have done it himself," he said. "He knew it had to be you. He could have just kidnapped me a long time ago and brought me here, but what would that have accomplished? David knew nothing of this, and he wouldn't have any sense of what he was saving anyhow. Not without you." As he said this, he squeezed her hands.

They both closed their eyes, and each relished the feeling of their skin touching, though it was just hands. Friends hold hands all the time – this was nothing new. They sat in silence just this way for a long while. Eventually, Martha noticed that there was no sound outside or inside.

"You know, I don't hear anything," she said softly. "I wonder what Raj and John are fixing."

The Doctor smiled into the dark. "They're not fixing anything, Martha. They're waiting for you to fix me."

She could have argued again that he wasn't hers to fix, but as soon as he said it, she knew he was right. It didn't matter what had _actually_ brought him back to himself. What mattered was that Raj and the Doctor believed it was her. That's why Raj had made sure to leave them alone together.

And perhaps they were right. Perhaps seeing the police box was just a little kick over the edge, to which Martha had been leading him all along.

But she wasn't sure what was expected of her. Did Raj know somehow that they'd made love in the petrol station and want them to do it again? Blimey, what was he, a pimp? Was she supposed to talk to him, coax the answer out of him? That was a tall order – sure, she could invoke some of the Doctor's more recent memories and remind him of who he was, but help him solve a problem concerning a spaceship whose stellar fuel has been corrupted by particles from the Earth's crust? What was she supposed to do? Encourage him to begin free-associating? Wasn't that John's area of expertise?

Expertise. Hmm. Interesting word.

Martha had an area of expertise. She was a doctor. Not a medical student, not someone's assistant, she was an M.D., and she'd been a good one before she'd been dragged into this fiasco. She knew that the Doctor sitting in front of her was not human, but she could try.

She considered basic body mechanics. Stress causes the heart-rate to increase, which causes increased blood-flow to the extremities. The brain needs blood to function, and if blood is otherwise occupied and being forced through the body in an unnatural fashion, the brain has less control over what information it can receive and retrieve.

Okay, so Time Lords have two hearts. Didn't that just make the rule doubly true?

She pulled her arms gently away from him and whispered to him to relax. She took his glasses gingerly off his face and set them on the panel in front of him. She had no instruments with her, but she had her self. Apparently, she was a calming influence on the Doctor, now all she had to do was put that theory to the test.

"Close your eyes," she whispered. "Just let me touch you."

"No problem there," he said, smirking.

She smiled as well, but said, "Shhh."

She put two fingers at each of his temples and felt for the indentations in the side of his skull. Just like a human, there they were, about an inch from his eyes. She applied gentle pressure and moved her fingers in circles.

"Mmm," he moaned. She said nothing. She could hear his breathing steadying, could almost feel him relax as she continued to massage. Before long, she let her fingers climb up his scalp, and she buried them in his thick shock of crazed dark hair. They moved firmly, deeply in an erratic round pattern against his skin, pulling gently at the hair, eliciting more soft moans from him. As he relaxed, she tensed. In a way, she felt that this was an even more intimate experience than the one they had shared the night before.

And that was complicated. But it felt good. She moved down to the shoulders, unencumbered, she noted, by layers of brown pin-striped fabric. She kept her fingers clear of the front of clavicle which can be sensitive, and concentrated on the indentations which marked where the clavicle became the shoulder joint. She pressed her fingers in, and he responded by adjusting his neck muscles and shoulders.

"Martha, you're a genius," he whispered.

"How do you feel?"

"Mmm, I'm jelly from the waist down. Keep going – you'll have the top half transformed in no time."

"Doctor." As she scolded him a bit, she ran her hands up and down his neck, pressing her fingers into the notches just below the ears and behind the jaw.

He didn't say anything.

"Doctor?"

Silence.

She came around in front of him. He placed her hands on his shoulders and examined his face. "Doctor?"

He opened his eyes and smiled. "I know what to do."

She smiled back and leaned back on the control panel. "Really?"

"Yes. Thanks to you." He stood, and quite suddenly, took her face in his hands and kissed her. She pushed her fingers against his chest in a half-hearted attempt to do the right thing and stop this now. But she didn't mean it. When he pulled away, he said, "I really, really owe you, Martha."

"No, you really, really don't."

"Oh yes. Yes I do." He smiled sideways. He dashed to the door. "Raj! Get back in here!"

"Oh, thank heaven," Raj was saying as he re-entered the craft with John. "We weren't doing any good out here. What we were trying wasn't working, we were totally out of options..."

"Yeah, yeah," the Doctor said, throwing his glasses on again. "Tell me, is this a Fourth Janglian ship?"

"Yes."

"And is it up to date for early twenty-first century technology?"

"Of course."

"Has it ever been taken to a hostile planet?"

"Yes, five months ago."

"Then it must have an electrocutive associative particle ejector?"

"Yes!"

"Beautiful. Does it have a jack and stilts made on your home planet?"

"Yes!"

"_Molto bene!_" He looked at Martha. "Ooh, now that felt right to say."

She smiled.

"Jack, Martha, disembark, please – don't need to be barbecuing humans in the process! Raj, set up the stilts and I'll set the controls. We're going to eject everything with Earth molecules. We'll de-corrupt your engine and re-combust it! Oh yes!"

The Doctor was shouting now, which practically made her heart soar. She led John off the ship and watched Raj jack the ship up on stilts.

They stood in the grass out of earshot of the two aliens, and John was breathing hard, she could hear.

"John, you should calm down," she said, stroking his back. "You're not in any danger. In a little while, everything will make sense, but I promise – none of us wants t hurt you."

"Martha, what is happening? I don't understand any of this."

She sighed. "If I told you, you wouldn't believe me."

"Yeah well, that's pretty much a given. I don't believe anything I've seen or heard in the last forty-five minutes, so you might as well try me."

"Fine," she said, looking at him squarely, one eyebrow raised. "An alien called Davros is trying to take over the world by turning humans into alien hybrids. Raj and the Doctor – that's David – were trying to stop him, but the Doctor got pulled into an alternate reality where he was a med school professor. That's how Davros planned to take us all out of the game so that he could do his dirty work. Then Raj came to you, Captain Jack, to try to stop it because you are the second line of defence in the universe after the Doctor. You run an alien-fighting organisation called Torchwood, but then you got pulled in as well, and now you think your name is John and that you're a hospital counsellor. I was working for you when it happened. After you got changed, they decided not to take any chances, and Raj doused me with some chemical that made me immune to whatever amnesia or mind-control is affecting you and the Doctor. That's why I've always seemed like I was in another world, John. I _belong_ in another world, and so do you."

He looked at her calmly, his usual unflappable resolve having returned. "If that's true, then why are the Doctor's memories coming back, and mine are not?"

"Because he's a Time Lord," she told him. "He's not human. His mind is much, must stronger and faster than a human's. Professor Simm is a Time Lord as well, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's now having some inkling that something isn't right. But you and Billie and Catherine and Dr. Ellis? You lot will be stuck until the Doctor figures out how to reverse it. For now, you'll just have to believe me."

He looked the ship up and down with disbelief. "How can I believe you?" he asked, gasping his words. "This is madness. You're talking about alternate realities and aliens. David said I was born three thousand years from now... how am I supposed to swallow all this? You people need help!"

Martha noted then that Raj was finished propping the ship up, and had now re-entered the craft.

"John, look around you," she begged. She gestured toward the ship. "Look at this thing. What other explanation is there? Come on. Haven't you ever had a memory you couldn't explain? Something that felt like a dream but it was too vivid, too real? Didn't you feel some kind of familiarity when you met David? Think about it! You are not John the hospital counsellor! You are Captain Jack Harkness, leader of the Torchwood Institute! You've travelled in time, you've fought aliens, you've been doused with energy from the time vortex..."

"No, no," he insisted, walking swiftly toward the spaceship. "I won't listen to anymore of this."

She chased after him. "John! Stop it! Don't go near the ship, they're ejecting Earth molecules!"

He wasn't heeding her. He climbed up through the door, and as he did, before she could stop it, she heard the Doctor's voice cry out, "Three, two, one!"

With that, the entire craft came alive with an orange glow, and a loud bang followed, whereby bits of dust were expelled from seemingly every part of the thing. John was electrocuted just as he opened his mouth to speak, and Martha watched in horror as he twitched and writhed first in the doorway of the spaceship, and then on the ground. When the ejection stopped, John expired.

The Doctor came running out of the ship, and looked solemnly at John. "Oh boy," he sighed. "I'm sorry, Jack."

As she had at least twice before, Martha approached the supine body on the ground and pressed her ear to his chest. She looked up at the Doctor and shook her head to indicate that there was no sign of life.

"Let's hope he remembers enough to wake up," the Doctor said before re-entering the ship. Martha sat and held John's hand, hoping against hope that he would have retained Captain Jack's powers of resurrection.

Sure enough, two minutes passed and the man gasped hard and sat up. He sputtered and coughed a few times, and then looked at Martha's smiling face. "What the hell was that?"

"I forgot to tell you that you're immortal. Sorry."


	18. Chapter 18

EIGHTEEN

The trip took a little over an hour. The four of them travelled at incredible speeds across the universe and no one said a word the entire time. Least of all, John. He sat and stared at the back of the seat in front of him, unmoving. After he'd come back from the dead, he'd gone with them willingly. Clearly, he wanted and needed answers that he now understood only these people could give.

Martha had a limited view out of a small window to her left. They circled in for a landing on some planet, and docked within some kind of hangar – a magnetic force pulled them in, and she felt the spacecraft jolt a bit when they stopped.

"There now," sighed Raj. "Here we are.

"Jack, how are you doing?" Martha asked. "Sorry. John."

"I was dead."

"Yes, you were," Martha told him. "And then you came back to life. Time Vortex, Game Station... we've been through this. Five times. You're going to be okay."

"Mm," John grunted.

The door opened from the outside. "Enueveb!" said a voice.

"Norogob!" Raj called back. "Go ahead, friends," he said to Martha, John and the Doctor.

"What was that?" asked Martha.

"He said welcome and I said hello. Standard greetings in the Kaf Celape language. That's where we are – my home planet."

They all stepped off and were greeted by an alien being which looked like a grey, lumpy upside-down pear, with no neck and bat wings. It was an exceedingly unpleasant-looking being, which is, Martha guessed, why Raj was obliged to walk about on Earth with a "disguise," as he called it.

Raj introduced them. "This is my cousin, Lemi. He's the one whose ship you just fixed, Doctor."

"We fixed," the Doctor corrected, taking Martha's hand. "Nice to meet you, Lemi."

Lemi looked at Raj and said something in their own language. Raj answered him.

The Doctor leaned over and translated for Martha. "He's confused because he says we've actually met before. Just one of many things I suppose I have to get used to."

"You understood him?"

"Apparently."

"Doctor, this way please," Raj said.

The humanoids trooped through the building, spying more funny-looking creatures throughout. They all greeted Raj warmly, as well as the Doctor. When they got into a dark, deserted corridor, Raj fell into step with the Doctor.

"Is any of this ringing a bell, Doctor?"

"No, I'm sorry," he said. "Should it?"

"You were here with us, in this very building, for several weeks before you were sent to Earth to become Professor David."

The Doctor sighed. "I just don't remember, Raj."

"It's all right. Just like everything else, it will come back to you."

Raj swiped a security card through a machine and a door opened. He ushered everyone through.

"In London, it is late afternoon by now," Raj said. "It is unlikely we'll be able to stop the Master before he uses the Dalek hybridising device..."

"Oh God," the Doctor groaned at the implications.

"But we can still do a lot of good if we can get reality reversed back to the way things ought to be. The Master might be lost, but perhaps the rest of them are not. But we think that Davros used so much energy to transform reality that it shorted out our circuits," he explained. "That's why we haven't been able to change everyone back ourselves. It's our technology he used, but just before you left us, our machinery went mad and we haven't been able to do anything with it since."

The Doctor nodded, but seemed nervous.

They all followed Raj into a large room. The place looked deserted, though several of the planet's natives were standing by. The Doctor took a few steps forward and looked around. Controls were everywhere, screens, toggles, dials. However, in the middle of the largest board, a large burn mark was obvious. The metal was black and the controls were melted. Ropes cordoned off the area, a yellow distress light flashed lazily, and only the bare minimum of illumination was enabled. This had once been a room alive with activity, the business of repairing time and reality. Today, it was dead.

And the Doctor, their only hope, looked about, discouraged.

The native guards spoke to Raj in their language, and he exchanged words with them softly, while watching the Doctor closely.

Martha silently wished that everyone would stop looking at him. He knew they were expecting him to do something fantastic, and that was only stressing him out again. They simply did not have time for him to have a Zen moment every single time he didn't know something. They all just needed to leave him alone.

But in spite of this, she couldn't help staring herself. Like everyone else, she was expectant. If he could boost the machinery, it would bring everyone back to their senses. Rose could escape the Master, Donna would know how to stall and Jack would be back...

But the Doctor sighed, "I'm sorry. I know you said I've seen this before, but... I can't help you."

"Well it was worth a shot," Raj said. "I thought you might say that. Let's go to plan B. I would have done this first, but figured skipping this step might save time, but it looks like... well, come with me."

Again, Martha, John and the Doctor followed him down another corridor. He stopped at the door, and turned to face his friends. "Doctor, if this doesn't work, I don't know what will. Please, open your mind."

The Doctor nodded gravely, and Raj swiped his security card. The door opened and they were greeted by the sight of another police box. This one, however, did not have broken windows or chipping paint.

The Doctor exhaled emotionally, his eyes narrowing to prevent the tears. "God I've missed you," he whispered to his most constant companion. "Where've you been?"

"We would have brought it to you on Earth, but none of us knows how to operate it. It's just been sitting here dormant, dying," Raj said quietly.

The Doctor did not answer. He strode toward the TARDIS and reverently pushed open the door and disappeared went by – felt like ages. Martha imagined the psychic communing going on inside and it almost made her weep. The Doctor must have felt as if the whole of the universe was opening up to him, as if he could see the truth of all ages, now that he had his TARDIS back.

Raj and his fellow Celapians were speaking to each other quietly behind her. She and John just stared at the TARDIS and watched. Finally, the 'Police Public Call Box' sign at the top lit up and the familiar wheeze of the TARDIS' gears filled the air. After a moment, Martha realised that she could suddenly understand what Raj was saying to his comrade.

"It's a good sign," Raj was saying. "He completely recognises it."

"I think this will work," the other said. "Let's hope anyway, because even Imo can't fix the controls. Without the Doctor we're totally done-in."

Martha's heart leapt. "Raj! I can understand you! John, can you understand them?"

"Yeah, how does that work?"

"It's the TARDIS," she told him, hugging him. "It translates for us. Its connection with the Doctor is re-established... he's back!"

The Doctor stuck his head out the door. "Oh yes!" he cried. "I'm back! Ha!"

Martha ran toward him and he lifted her off her feet in a giant hug. She motioned for John to follow, and the two of them stepped inside the TARDIS. John's reaction was typical – he went breathless with the sheer size of the inside of the vessel.

Raj entered behind them. "Doctor, do you feel up to going back in the control room now?"

"Oh, you bet I do! _Allons-y!_" Everyone followed the Doctor back out again.

"You'll be needing this, then," one of the Celapians said, holding the sonic screwdriver out in front of him.

The Doctor took it with both hands, as though it were a holy relic. "Thank you," he said. The Celapian nodded, then stepped out of the way.

The four of them raced back into the control room and the air was filled with the familiar sounds of the Doctor's trainers squeaking against the metal floors as he dashed about like a madman. He yelled technical instructions at Raj and the others, total nonsense to Martha, but just the sound of it made her happier than she had ever been. The sonic buzzed and pulsed, wires became crossed and tied together and reconnected, and suddenly, the Doctor was standing in the middle of the room wielding the sonic like a conductor's baton.

"Ready?" he called.

Raj and the two Celapian guards took their places at the walls near toggle switches.

"Now!" the Doctor screamed, and the switches were thrown.

The entire building seemed to quake, and Martha was reminded of when the hospital was transported to the moon. Everyone was knocked off their feet, and she and John grabbed each other for purchase. All of the air seemed to be swiftly sucked out of the room, and she could hear screaming all over the complex.

When it stopped, she was lying on the floor face-down, both arms grasping John's forearms. She looked up, and John looked back at her.

"Martha!" he cried. They both got to their feet and hugged. "Thank God you kept your sanity! And Doctor!" he cried, in very much the same way. He crossed the room and hugged the Doctor so hard, it almost knocked the Time Lord off his feet again. "You are awesome, Doctor! Seriously!"

"Good to see you Jack!" the Doctor said, patting his friend on the back.

The two men stood and smiled giddily at each other for a few seconds before Martha asked, "What do we do next?"

"Back to Earth!" the Doctor cried out, running into the next room. As they approached the TARDIS, Jack caught sight of himself in a chrome surface. He stared at the red plaid shirt and navy blue Bugle Boys with disgust.

"Holy cow!" he screamed. "What is this, the spring line from Iowa Farmboy Magazine?"

"Oh, come on!" cried the Doctor. "Just get in here!"

Jack and Martha followed him in. Raj waved them off, swearing they didn't need him now that reality was back to normal – his role in this had been just this: helping the Doctor reverse the collapse. From here, it was the Doctor's territory.

As the machinery started up and the Doctor did his usual mad dance round the console, Jack asked, "Where's your wardrobe?"

"Fifty-seventh door on the left. Just hurry!"

Jack disappeared sprinting down the hall as the TARDIS began its journey back to Earth. Within seconds, the vessel materialised. Martha peeked out the window and recognised a chapel on a remote part of the university's campus. The moment was here: it was time to stop the Master. Again. Only now, they'd have Donna and Rose on their side as well.

A moment later, Jack emerged wearing a white dress shirt and black trousers and boots. His long pea coat was missing, but he looked much more like himself than he had five minutes before. He was carrying with him a fresh, brown pinstriped suit and tie. He thrust it at the Doctor. The two of them tittered about the events of the past day as the Doctor unashamedly climbed out of David's clothes and back into his own. When he was finished, he looked like himself again. Something caught in Martha's throat when she saw him – she'd missed him so much.


	19. Chapter 19

NINETEEN

Martha, Jack and the Doctor raced across the campus to the hall where the Master and his colleague were to have their presentation. In spite of the danger at hand, Martha felt exhilarated. It felt like the old team back together, saving the world, the way it should be.

They reached the back door of the lecture hall and the Doctor peeked inside. He gasped just a bit.

"What?" Jack whispered.

"Someone's been turned. He's got the Dalek's exterminating ray turned on the crowd," he said back. "We've got to get in there. If he sees me, maybe we can draw his fire away."

"Doctor, you've gotten lucky a few too many times that way," Martha told him. "Not again."

"Martha he's got a weapon that kills on the spot aimed at a room full of innocent people. This is what I do. Now come on."

She sighed and gingerly followed him into the room, behind where a man in a suit stood on a table aiming his weapon into the crowd. He was speaking in the low, even tones of a Dalek.

"If one male and one female do not volunteer for transformation in the next forty-nine seconds, one male and one female will die. And each sixty seconds thereafter. Daleks will reign supreme. Humans will comply."

The Doctor trained his eyes upon the weapon and didn't seem to move them. Martha looked to the right, and pressed against the wall was a very frightened Rose. When she saw them, she exhaled noisily, her jaw dropped and her knees nearly gave out. One more moment and she would have fallen down or made a noise that could have been construed as volunteering. Martha took two steps toward her and put her hand over her mouth. Rose clung to her, her eyes registering a blinding fear, but slowly relenting in the face of apparent salvation. Gently, Martha removed her hand and just held on. Rose began to sob silently into Martha's shoulder. The Doctor looked back at them worriedly, and sighed, knowing his work was still ahead.

The clock ticked in the back of the room, and the minute hand moving sounded like a giant drum. Also to the right, beyond where Rose had been, the Master stood dumbfounded, staring at the hybrid. He switched his gaze to the Doctor. His eyes opened wide in recognition, then he pointed at the man on the table and a mouthed, "What the fuck?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes, but motioned for the Master to remain quiet.

"Twenty seconds," the man on the desk said. "One male and one female will volunteer, or one male and one female will die."

Martha and the Doctor looked at each other. He gestured with his head. Martha handed Rose off into Jack's arms, and grabbed the Doctor's hand. They strode out in front of the table.

"All right, then," he called out. "We'll volunteer!"

The man on the table turned his attention to them. "You are wise. You will join the Dalek brigade."

"Oh," the Doctor said in mock-surprise. "Well, we weren't sure what we were volunteering for, we just walked in, but it looked like a jolly good bit of fun. What's happening exactly?"

The man gestured to the device at his left. Martha recognised it as the D.A.L.E.K., or the Augmenter. "This machine will manipulate your molecules. You will become part of Dalek kind."

"All right, I'm game," the Doctor told him. "But just tell me... why?"

"I do not understand the question."

"Well, why? Why would we want to do that? Why are you wanting to change people? Why are you wearing that tie with that belt? I mean, really, have some sense of decorum."

"I find your comments confusing and irreverent. I do not wish to hear more. You and the female will now approach the device."

"I and the female still need to know more," the Doctor said, beginning to pace. "Because it seems to me that you're just ethnically cleansing, and we all know _that _doesn't work. Trying to change people... tsk tsk, shame on you. Why can't we all just get along? I mean, look at these folks!"

"If you do not approach the device, you and the female will die."

"But seriously, look at them," the Doctor insisted, smiling at the group. He gestured at a frightened woman in the front row. "This nice lady – blonde, attractive... and this lady next to her. Taller, a bit stouter, darker hair... different. Do you have children, love?" he asked her.

"Yes," she answered, nearly weeping.

"See that? Everyone's different, they've got their lives and their families, genetic variations, and that's brilliant! Why can't you just leave them alone?"

"Daleks are supreme," the man answered.

"Blimey, where have I heard that before?" he asked sarcastically, under his breath. "But you're forgetting one thing."

"What is that?"

He squared his angry gaze upon the man on the table. It gave Martha chills. "I'm the Doctor, and I'm going to stop you."

"Doctor, enemy of the Daleks," the hybrid man cried out. "You will be exterminated."

"You know, you should sing me a new one sometime," the Doctor said, annoyed. "How about this one!"

With that he aimed the sonic at the Augmenter device, and the clash of frequencies produced a high-pitched sound that caused everyone in the room to cover their ears and cry out. The device was destroyed in a shower of pops and sparks.

"Run!" the Doctor screamed at the crowd. The room filled with chaos as people ran up the stairs and out the door. The hybrid began firing at random, and at least two humans fell dead before the Doctor and Martha turned and ran through the door they had used to enter. Jack pulled Rose through, and the Master joined them in the hall before the door was pulled shut. The Doctor sonicked the lock and they all ran.

"What the hell is happening?" the Master asked, running along with them.

"Davros got hold of a reality-collapser," the Doctor shouted behind him.

"From which planet?"

"Oh, like I'm going to tell you that!"

"Ugh, you're such a wanker!" the Master cried out as they all turned a corner.

They heard laser shots coming from the front hallway. When Jack's mobile rang, the Doctor pulled them all into a small classroom. Rose gave the Doctor a very relieved hug while Jack answered his phone. Martha saw her almost completely relax then. Martha was relieved – a coherent Rose was a more effective Rose, in any universe.

"Hello?" Jack said into the phone. "Yes, she's right here, she's fine." He looked at Martha and mouthed the words _it's your mum_. "Are you all right? No, no, it was a collapse of reality... no, the Daleks. Yes, Daleks. We're working it out now, I'll have her ring you back. Okay, bye."

He shut his phone. "Martha, call your mother. She's a little confused."

Martha nodded absently.

Jack turned to the Master. "Who is that guy?" he asked.

"Haven't you been paying attention? He's a hybridised Dalek. I told him if he wants domination he should run for office, but he wouldn't listen."

Rose chimed in, making up for the Master's insanity. "We don't know who he is really, but we know him as Matthew Oliver. He was supposed to be one of Professor Simm's colleagues from East Kent. At the last minute, he decided he wanted to be the first to test the machine."

"And you let him?" the Doctor asked the Master.

"Who am I to stand in the way of genius?" he answered. "Besides, by then I'd started to get my memories back and I figured it was something I didn't want to inflict upon myself. And your twinkie here didn't want to do it..." he said, gesturing at Rose.

"Good thing too," Rose shot back. "I turn into a Dalek, who'd fetch your coffee then?"

"Yes, a very good thing," the Doctor growled at the Master. Martha shuddered to think of what the Doctor could do to someone who turned Rose into a it was, Martha was thinking of the relationship they'd had as professor and assistant – she knew the Doctor had to be thinking about it as well.

"Look, people," Jack said, hands in the air. "What are we going to do here? He's out there and he's killed God knows how many people. We are unarmed and we have no plan. So let's remedy half the problem, shall we?"

"Maybe we can get everyone out of the building and somehow trap him inside," Martha offered. There's enough of us to get to most of the exits and usher people out."

"Good thinking," Jack said. "I'll take the front lines, since the rest of you can't risk getting shot. Doctor, what do you think?"

"I think it's a decent plan, but what do we do with him once he's locked inside?"

"Erm," the Master said, exaggeratedly shrugging with both arms out to the sides. "We blow up the building?"

"Not an option," the Doctor said, without looking at him.

"He's a Dalek, or have you forgotten?"

"He's also half human! Besides, he's the only one of his kind..."

"Oh, you and your stupid genocide embargo," the Master said, rolling his eyes. "You're such a hippie."

"Okay look," the Doctor said to everyone. "Jack, you go up to the north exit where the shots are coming from, try to keep people from going _up_ and try to get them _out. _Same goes for everyone. Rose, you go to the west, Martha, east. The nutter and I will go south. Martha, once your exit is sealed, start circling the building and see if anyone needs medical attention. The place is full of doctors, but none of them are coherent right now."

"Got it," she said.

The Doctor went to the door and motioned for everyone to stay quiet. They all tiptoed out into the hallway and shut the door behind them. No sooner had they done that when the being formerly known as Matthew Oliver appeared in front of them. Two Time Lords and three humans lined up execution-style, and one mightily pissed-off Dalek hybrid took aim.

"You will be exterminated now, Doctor," he said flatly.

As if it were an instinct, Jack stepped forward. "By you and what army, mutt-boy?"

Of course, he was then exterminated. Martha and Rose looked at each other and sighed. "How many times has he done that?" Martha whispered.

"I don't know, but it's bound to take its toll at some point..."

The Doctor stepped forward, both hands in the air. "All right, Dr. Oliver," he said. "Just listen to me."

"Dr. Oliver is dead. I am now a member of Dalek kind."

"There's got to be some remnant in there somewhere," the Doctor pleaded. "Please, look deep. Dr. Oliver wanted to improve the world, rid it of lymphoblastic leukaemia. Yes, he was a bit misguided, but surely he wouldn't want to see all these people killed. That's not what he stood for."

The hybrid simply repeated, "Dr. Oliver is dead. I am now a member of Dalek kind." Then almost as an afterthought, he added, "Daleks are supreme." He took aim at the Doctor.

"Okay okay okay," the Doctor said, stepping forward again, pushing his hands out instinctively to shield his companions. "But just... think. You still have a human brain, and it's dynamic and adaptable, not like a Dalek. Think. Don't act. Just think."

There was silence while the hybrid stared at him. He did not lower his weapon, he simply stared. After a long moment, he said, "You will be exterminated, Doctor."

"That's not what you're here for!" the Doctor screamed back. "You are here to bring life, not death!"

"Oh, for God's sake," the Master whined. In one quick motion, he reached into the Doctor's breast pocket and aimed the sonic screwdriver at the hybrid. The thing buzzed, and in a moment, the Dalek weapon backfired and enveloped Oliver in a blue light. He fell to the floor dead, exterminated.

The Doctor ripped the sonic out of the Master's hands and violently shoved him against the wall. No threats, no harm, simply a good, hard shove. Martha knew he'd love to beat the man silly, but he did not, could not. For his part, the Master smiled delightedly at the rare display of physical anger from the Doctor.

Jack gasped and woke. He looked at Oliver sprawled on the floor and the crushed look on the Doctor's face. Of Martha, he asked, "Master?"

She nodded.

The five of them headed toward the north exit where most of the commotion had occurred. There was still plenty of chaos, but since the laser blasts had stopped, people had calmed a bit. Martha brought the Master with her to a lab to fetch medical supplies (because he had a key). The Doctor and Jack gave first aid to the injured who needed to be moved or carried, and Martha and Rose tended to cuts and scrapes and concussions. The Master just watched, and the Doctor kept him in the corner of his eye.

When ambulances had carried away the last of the injured and they had answered all the questions they could for the police (keeping the Master locked and restrained inside the TARDIS), they all piled inside the TARDIS and materialised in front of Martha's parents' home. She went in and assured her family that she was all right, and then joined her friends again. They all agreed that they needed a good meal and a drink, so they headed to a pub that was a favourite of Jack's whenever he was in London.

Martha and the Doctor took turns explaining the events to the group, and everyone listened intently. Someone asked about Donna, and the Doctor dismissed the suggestion that they should ring her. No one asked why, though everyone wondered.

And then, Martha glanced across the street. Coming toward them, looking solemn, was Raj.


	20. Chapter 20

TWENTY

Martha made eye contact with their alien friend as he entered the tavern. He waved her over, and she followed.

"Hi Raj," she chirped. "Hey, thank you for your help today. We couldn't have done it without you."

"You're welcome," he said, rather sadly.

"Why so solemn?"

He sighed. "After you lot left, I looked into the consequences of rebuilding the old reality and discovered that it did not create a parallel universe. That means, there is no dimension somewhere with David and John and Catherine – it simply ceased to be. This was worrying because it's basically unheard-of. We manipulate realities all the time, and it always creates some separate tangent..."

"Raj, I'm a little out of my depth here, why don't you talk to the Doctor?"

He gazed at the table where sat Jack and the Doctor, Rose and the Master. "I see she's not making eye contact with either one of them."

Martha looked. Rose was chatting with John, and she hadn't spoken much to the Doctor all day. Certainly she was keeping her distance from the Master. "Yeah, you're right," she observed.

"Maybe they think they have time to work it all out."

"What are you on about, Raj?"

"Martha, I'm not telling the Doctor this because... well, there are a lot of things to sort out here, and if I speak to him, he'll ask a million questions and then he'll try to fix it. And it can't be fixed. He simply needs to say goodbye and go back to being... who he is. Defender of the universe. Lonely."

Martha's mind caught up slowly. "So, somehow, not creating a parallel universe by reversing the collapse means that Rose has to go back to where she came from, doesn't it?"

He nodded. "At first I was glad because if the rules were changing, it meant that... well, the rules could change. I thought maybe it meant that the walls between realities had broken down and something had gone wonky and suddenly her world and our world were combined. But when I started digging, I discovered that what it actually means is that... it's complicated, but it's kind of like we're being given a second chance. Reality went back to normal without creating the regular alternative consequences, which normally would be good. Reality manipulators all over the universe pray for an opportunity like that. But in order for _this world_ to remain stable, _all_ reality has to go back to the way it had been before."

"Does that mean if she stays here, reality could collapse again?"

"Yes, it does."

She watched Rose chat with Jack. She watched as the Doctor listen sceptically to the Master prattle on about something or another. She felt a pang. There was no denying it: Martha loved the Doctor. Sure, she'd gotten engaged and told herself she'd moved on, but she could not shake the influence of this man, this Time Lord, who had shown her so much and changed her life so dramatically for the better. To love someone means wanting to put that person's happiness before your own, and so much of the Doctor's happiness hinged on being with Rose. To see them diverging like this, unable to speak to each other, unable to relate, avoiding the 'elephant in the room,' as it were, it actually hurt Martha to see.

But even more than that, she remembered the look on the Doctor's face when she knew he was internally pining after Rose, and she knew that he hurt inside. And that hurt _her._

Suddenly, she saw a chance to make it right. She saw the opportunity to make the Doctor happy in a way she never could have before.

"Could someone take her place?" she asked quietly, not looking at Raj.

A long pause. Then, he asked, "You would do that?"

She watched the Doctor and Rose not speaking. Again, she got chills picturing Rose and the Master. This needed to be worked out, and if Rose left again, it would create the most hideous brand of non-closure for them, and Martha couldn't even imagine the heartbreak that would follow.

"Yes, I would," she whispered. She looked up at Raj.

"You must love him."

"Is it that obvious?"

"Well, it was when I saw you at the petrol station."

She remembered all the hand-holding they'd done during that time. "I guess we were a bit clingy."

"There's that, yes, but I was really thinking more about the sex."

She flushed. "Excuse me?"

"Kaf Celapians can see auras," he told her, matter-of-factly. "They linger for at least twelve hours. You and the Doctor both were flooded with some kind of physical exertion, euphoria and affection. Either you had sex, or you played rugby in that petrol station and really _really_ liked it."

She sighed. "It wasn't rugby."

"Thought not," he told her. He put his hand on her shoulder comfortingly. "It's okay, Martha. Really, it is."

"Well, does it have to be _her_, or does stability only demand some kind of sacrifice, someone to play her part in her world? She works for Torchwood, right? Well, I could do that too."

"Martha, you probably exist in that other world already," he told her. "There's already a Martha Jones there."

"So I'll change my name and avoid myself. If I have to _become_ Rose Tyler, then I will – her family will understand. What would I have to do?"

Raj sighed.

* * *

"What are they talking about?" Jack asked the Doctor.

"I don't know," he said. "I can't read lips, Jack."

"Who's he?" Rose wanted to know.

"He's Raj," the Doctor said, without looking at her. "He's from the planet Kaf Celape. It's his people who wield the technology which allowed reality to be changed, but it was stolen. He helped us bring everything back to normal. He was a kind of liaison for Martha while the rest of us where out of our minds."

Before long, Raj Martha walked back toward the table. She did not sit, but picked up her handbag and said, "Doctor, will you please order me another drink? I need to go powder my nose." She looked at Rose expectantly, relying on that unspoken language that passes between women when a visit to the ladies' is imminent.

She was not disappointed. "I'll join you," Rose said, standing up with her own clutch in her hand. Raj took a seat beside Jack.

As they walked away, Martha heard the Master ask, "Why do they always have to go in pairs? It's like they're constantly conspiring."

"No, that's you," the Doctor muttered.

The girls giggled a bit.

They entered the ladies' room and Martha plopped her handbag on the counter. She was relieved to find that no one else was there. She extracted a lipstick and began to apply it. Rose did the same.

Martha took the opportunity to look Rose over. She had already assessed long ago how lovely Rose was, what a beautiful smile she had. But she was still wearing Billie's navy blue pressed slacks and a fitted white tailored blouse. Martha was unnerved by this – Rose belonged in a hoodie and jeans like a real person! No matter – just a bit longer, and she'd be completely back to herself again.

After a moment, Martha said. "I'm going to be blunt and just come right out and ask. Did you know that everyone on campus knew that you were shagging the Master?"

Rose looked at her with wide eyes. "No."

"I mean, I think it's fair to say that anyone who would care knows that it wasn't you – it was Billie, whatever that means," Martha said, replacing her lipstick cap. She turned and faced Rose. "But _everyone on campus_ knew. Even the other professors, do you understand?"

Rose leaned back on the counter. "Oh God."

"Yeah," Martha whispered.

"Who is 'the Master' anyway?" Rose asked. "What kind of a name is that?"

Martha was surprised at the question. She'd forgotten that before this debacle, Rose and the Master had never met.

"He's a Time Lord," Martha told her.

"He's a _what?_"

"I know, I know," Martha smiled. "You thought there was only one. But it turns out... well, it's a long story involving a fob watch, the end of the universe, the Prime Minister and yet another alternate reality, but suffice it to say that another one survived the Time War in a manner of speaking. He and the Doctor have a long, long history of locking horns. He's not a good bloke, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Ah," Rose said, pursing her lips. Martha could tell she was considering the implications of what she and the only _other _surviving Time Lord had done together. For months.

"So, you and the Doctor need to talk about it," Martha said. "I've noticed that you haven't really made eye contact with him, and I don't blame you. But if you're going to rebuild whatever relationship you have, then it needs to be addressed."

Rose nodded, swallowing hard.

"But... if it helps, you should know that the Doctor will have something of his own to confess," Martha added.

"He will?"

"Yes. Ask me how I know."

Realisation crossed Rose's face as she studied Martha's eyes. "Oh. Oh. I suppose you _were _his TA for a bit."

"No, no," Martha corrected. "It only happened once. Okay, twice." Martha decided not to mention that it happened _because_ Rose/Billie had locked them in a petrol station together.

"It's okay," Rose told her, smiling weakly. "I have no claim on him, and he'd probably say the same of me."

"And you'd both be wrong. You know how you feel right now, knowing you spent three months shagging his arch nemesis? Well, that feeling gives you claim on each other, and right now you're both feeling it," Martha told her. "Which is why you have to resolve this sooner rather than later."

"Okay," Rose said, smiling again. "Why do you care so much?"

Martha sighed. What did she have to lose at this point by telling the truth? "Because I love him to pieces, Rose. And I cannot live if he's miserable. And soon, a... _separation_ will happen, and there will be nothing more I can do to help. I need to know he's taken care of."

Rose looked at her sympathetically, then hugged her quite suddenly. "I knew you were good."

* * *

"So you're telling me that she could get sucked into the void?" the Doctor asked.

"Yes, that's what I'm telling you, for the fourth time," Raj said, starting to get a bit annoyed. "This reality is unstable, and if we don't send her through soon, she may just fall through the walls on her own. And if that happens, there's a good chance she'll get stuck in the void."

"Well then, let's get those girls back here and split, ASAP," Jack said.

The Doctor looked at him with disdain.

"Sorry, Doctor," Jack said. "I'm not any more anxious for her to leave us than you are, but it's better than the alternative if we wait."

"Fine," the Doctor sighed.

"Where do we need to go?" Jack asked Raj.

The Doctor answered for him. "Norway."

"Norway?"

"Yes," the Doctor said. "There's a rift between the two worlds there, and usually it's sealed. But if ever there's a weak spot, it's there. She'll have the best chance of getting through without any resistance from the void."

"Why Norway?"

The Master chimed in. "I think the question you should be asking, Handsome Jack, is why _not_ Norway? I mean, consider the alternatives. Klosters? You'd constantly be worried about getting run down by some errant skiier on either side of the void. Cardiff? Well, there's already so much going on there, isn't there, what with the Vortex rift. San Francisco? Well..." then he fake-shuddered.

"That'll do, thanks," the Doctor said.

Just then, the girls appeared back at the table. Rose held her hand out to the Doctor and asked, "Fancy a walk?"


	21. Chapter 21

**THIS, MY FRIENDS, IS THE THRILLING CONCLUSION OF "FIRST DO NO HARM."**

**THANK YOU FOR READING AND REVIEWING AND ALL YOUR KIND WORDS AND CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK! I'VE RARELY HAD THIS MUCH FUN WRITING FAN FICTION! YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME.**

* * *

TWENTY-ONE

Forty-five minutes later, the Master was back in whatever rearward world he'd exiled himself to. The Doctor, who had planned on pontificating one more time on the evils of the path the Master had chosen for himself, had found that he didn't have the energy. After exhausting discussions with Raj and Rose in turn, he found that he just couldn't do it. He took the Master to the rift in Cardiff and Captain Jack escorted him into the vortex with the help of a manipulator only good for one trip.

After that, Jack saluted his friends, then returned to the Hub. He'd have one hell of a confused team to deal with, and he was sort of looking forward to hearing about what sort of lives Gwen and Ianto had had in his absence. Besides, he had said his goodbyes, and had absolutely no desire to witness the tearful carnage that was to come when they hit the beach in Norway.

Better just to walk away now.

* * *

Dusk, the end of a long, long day.

_Darlig Ulf Stranden._ The Doctor's least-favorite place in the universe. This cold, bleak, white speck on the face of the cosmos seemed to swallow him whole every time he came here. He stood in the sand and stared at the place where she had disappeared into 'Pete's World'. The goodbye had been brutal for him, but she had been brave, which hadn't made it any easier. She'd kissed him – no tears, just stoic resolve, with the assuredness that her sacrifice was necessary, and was bringing closure and balance.

Martha had been brilliant. She had been alone in the world for months, with incendiary knowledge that no-one else shared, with feelings and memories she could not discuss. She had known something was wrong and faced it, brought 'David' out of the darkness almost single-handedly, and once again helped to save the world... even though it hadn't gone as he had hoped. And then, when all was said and done, she had volunteered to give up everything she knew in this life to live in another reality, just to make him happy. Her family, her job, even her name, her very identity, were not her own, on the other side of the void.

And, she'd be letting go of him. Their many travels in the TARDIS, their one night together in the petrol station and all hope of reprising any of that... she'd known what the implications were. In the last year or two, she had made it amply clear that she loved him, but he never would have thought she'd make a decision like _this_ just to give him a taste of joy.

He turned and faced his TARDIS, and walked slowly back. He opened the door and went inside to see his most faithful companion sitting atop the navigator's chair, and Raj leaning against a railing.

"Did everything go all right?" she asked.

"I assume so," he told her. "No way to know – just have to have faith."

Raj assured him, "It was the right thing to do. Closure and balance."

The Doctor didn't respond to this. Instead, he asked, "Can I give you a lift home, Raj?"

"Thanks, but I left a spacecraft camouflaged in an abandoned Underground tunnel – I'd better go the old-fashioned way. Just a lift to Kensington station will be fine."

"All right, then," the Doctor said.

"Seriously, are you all right?" the lovely woman on the stool asked him.

"I will be," he assured her, facing her and squeezing her hands. She leaned forward and hugged him, resting her head on his chest.

"I wish you had let me go," she told him, whining just a bit, even though she was glad to be here.

"No, Martha," he said. "Wouldn't have been right. Besides, an inexact exchange like that would have given us _some_ stability, but not total. We could have lived that way, but for how long?"

"Raj said a hundred years, maybe more," Martha protested, pulling away from him to emphasize her point.

"A drop in the bucket of the grand scheme of things," the Doctor said, bopping a TARDIS control with his fist. He set about flicking switches and turning dials round the console, and the hum of the great machine filled he air. "A hundred years from now, who knows? Another reality collapse, and we might not be lucky enough then to have someone with their head screwed on so straight." He winked at her.

"Or a Kaf Celapian to whisper in her ear," Martha added, giving some of the credit rightfully to Raj.

"Besides," the Doctor said, shoving his hands in his pockets, the TARDIS flying steadily. "I'm not the one who wouldn't let you do it."

Martha chucked at the memory of Rose's commanding, almost intimidating voice as she instructed Raj to make sure that Martha did not move from that seat until she was good and gone. She hadn't entertained Martha's plan even for a second. Rose certainly understood the sacrifice, and offered her thanks over and over again, but nothing in her eyes had even betrayed any temptation.

Martha had protested, entreated Rose to think of the life she could have here, and Rose entreated Martha to think of the difficulty of having to hide from her own family, change her name and live someone else's life. Martha thought she was ready for all that – she had been willing to give up anything for the Doctor, she'd made that decision on the night of Leo's 21st when she'd allowed him to wisk her away. The two girls locked horns for the ensuing two hours, starting in the pub, out into the streets, in the TARDIS, in Cardiff near the rift and back in the TARDIS agian. The men, even the Master, chose not to get involved (though they all knew what was right, and how it would eventually turn out).

Rose knew. The stability of universes depended on her crossing over, and so, she needed to go home and make room for new adventures both for the Doctor and for herself. In the end, Martha found herself inside the TARDIS, being 'guarded' by Raj, waiting for the Doctor to come back and tell them Rose had gone.

"I mean, don't get me wrong," the Doctor added, interrupting her thoughts. "I would have tried to stop you."

"Yeah, but you were going to _talk to her_," Raj said in a mocking tone. "Have you met this woman? Hello, stubborn! No, Rose's direct, _militant_ approach proved much more effective."

The Doctor cracked a smile. "I prefer to think of it as tenacity. On both of their parts."

The TARDIS materialised in an abandoned tunnel, and when they looked outside, they saw a spacecraft very like the one they had used to travel to Kef Celape earlier that day.

"Right on target," the Doctor mused, patting himself on the back. "That makes a nice change."

Martha said goodbye to Raj, but she chose to stay inside as the Doctor walked him to his spacecraft.

"So what's next for you?" the Doctor asked him.

"It's homeward, try to repair the reality manipulator," Raj said, taking keys from his pocket. "And I'll probably appeal to the Court of Legislation to appoint a committee for researching intergalactic relations. We wouldn't have been in this pickle if we'd known not to trust Davros in the first place."

"Great idea," the Doctor commented. "Time to join the eight-ninth century."

"Quite right." Raj looked uncomfortably at his shoes.

"I know what you're going to say," the Doctor said. "You're going to tell me you're sorry that it didn't work out the way I'd hoped but that it's all for the best."

"I wasn't going to say that," Raj said, smiling wryly. "Doctor, I know what Rose meant to you, but when you look at her now, your aura goes blue."

The Doctor eyed him suspiciously. "My aura?"

"Yes," Raj admitted. "Kef Celapians can read auras. You've been running cold round Rose ever since you got your memories back, and she's been projecting uncertainty. Maybe you see her as tainted now, because of the Master..."

"No, I could never think that, not ever."

"But maybe she is. Sorry, _tainted _is the wrong word, but what I mean is, you are all changed. You, Rose, Jack, the Master, you're all different now. Something's happened to you as a result of spending three months as a med school professor, because your loyalties – or at least your affections – have changed. I saw it while the girls were arguing, and I saw it just now when Martha hugged you."

The Doctor sighed. He didn't like people in his mind like this, but he wasn't going to argue. Both he and Raj were quiet for a while.

Finally, Raj made eye contact with the Doctor, and then eyed the TARDIS, tilting his head, in indication of the beautiful, dynamic woman waiting inside for the Doctor. "You know what I'm going to say now?"

"Yes, and you're right. And I know it was difficult for you to say."

"Damn right it was, you lucky bastard."

"I'm sorry, Raj. The universe is a topsy-turvy place."

"Well, I suppose it's a day marked by sacrifice," he told the Doctor, sighing. "She was willing to make one for you, for love, so I'm making mine for her." A pause, and then, much more forcefully, Raj added, "You just make sure it's not in vain, all right? I'm not kidding – she loves you, and I want you to think every day of how fortunate you are. Got it?"

"Got it," the Doctor promised, earnestly.

"And if you don't," Raj said, retreating a bit, and then sounding just a little bit pained. "Then send her my way, will you?"

"Will do," the Time Lord said, silently vowing to himself that he'd never let that happen.

They shook hands, and the Doctor watched as Raj carefully flew his craft through the tunnels. When he was out of earshot, he return to his own craft. Martha was waiting right where he'd left her.

"Did you know Raj could read auras?" he asked, walking up the ramp.

"Yeah, he told me earlier today," she confessed. "He knew..."

He looked at her sideways as he prepared to move the TARDIS once again. "What?"

"He knew about _us_. About me and David, anyway," she said, trying to shrug to show indifference.

"Oh, that," he sighed.

"Er, Doctor," she said, carefully. "You should know... I told Rose about that."

"I figured," he said, leaning against the console in front of her. "Seeing as how she already knew when I tried to tell her myself."

"Sorry," she whispered.

"No need to be."

"I know it was none of my business. I just said it so she wouldn't feel guilty about the Master, so that she would talk to you without being scared."

"That wasn't her. And for that matter, it wasn't entirely the Master," he whispered back. "I know that, and she knows that I know it. Billie had no vestige of Rose inside her, none of Rose's memories or feelings, and no inkling that anything was out-of-place. She was only human – a victim of the manipulator."

"I guess a lot of us fell victim to that," Martha mused. "Well, a lot of _you_."

The Doctor could guess at what she meant. Her tone, and her blushing, betrayed everything.

"Martha," he said softly. "You know that David wasn't like Billie."

"In what way?"

"I don't have a human mind, so the reality collapse buried me a bit more shallow than it buried Donna and Rose and Jack. David, he had plenty of my memories," he told her. "He knew _something_ was up – he knew he didn't feel comfortable in his skin or in this world. And when you came into his life, you clawed at those memories so strongly that I was able to break free in just little bits."

"See? I thought so!" she exclaimed, remembering their talk in the petrol station.

"David had that police memorabilia obsession," the Doctor reminded her. "Surely you worked out that was me, trying to find my TARDIS, trying to get out."

"Yeah, I knew that."

"Billie had nothing like that. She totally engulfed Rose. David did not engulf me. Do you see what I'm trying to tell you?"

She did, or at least she thought she did. But she needed to be sure. So she lied. "No."

"Do you remember what I said in the car when you asked me to tell you what I was certain of? Anything that I knew wasn't a lie?"

She gulped. A simple "Yes," escaped her lips. Anything more and she would have cried.

"And you said I had my wires crossed, but I didn't. David was a lie, but he wasn't the only one in the driver's seat last night, Martha," he told her, taking her face in his hands. "I am the truth, and I was there too."

She couldn't hold back now. Tears fell. He kissed them away.

They shared a long, emotive embrace, lips and hearts pressed together, minds finally thinking the same thoughts.

When they were quite finished for now, she told him, "I have to say goodbye to someone."

* * *

He waited outside for less than fifteen minutes. He had expected it to take at least an hour of explanation, tears, recriminations... he knew _he _wouldn't let Martha Jones go without a fight, so why wasn't Tom clinging to her leg and begging?

She came out from the flat they shared looking sad, and she had a rucksack with her. She came inside the TARDIS and set her bag down.

"That was quick," he said. "Hurts him less, I suppose, that way. Like a bandage."

She smiled weakly, "He ended it. Not me."

He hadn't seen that coming. "Why?"

"He'd been a victim of the reality collapse as well, and when he got his memories back he remembered that I'd been a patient, and that I'd seemed completely mad," she said. Then her shoulders slumped a bit. "And he guessed correctly that _you_ were intertwined with whatever was happening, and by extension, I was as well."

"He couldn't handle that."

"No," she said. "I guess he finally worked it out, that I - we - would never have a normal life. My ties to you... I think that had always bothered him."

"Sorry."

"Why are you sorry? I went in there to end it anyway, it just saved me from having to break his heart. I hadn't been looking forward to that." And then, quite suddenly, the sadness dissipated completely, and she smiled at the Doctor. "I can't believe I'm back here."

"I can."

They embraced once more, and it was a kiss that definitely held a promise within.

**THE END**


End file.
